DEEPER LOOKS

The Future of International Norms:
US-Backed International Norms Increasingly Contested

Diverse global actors with divergent interests and goals are increasingly competing to promote and shape international norms on a range of issues, creating greater challenges to the US-led international order than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Some democracies are retreating from their longstanding role as norms leaders and protectors as populist influence grows. At the same time, authoritarian powers led by China and Russia are reinterpreting sovereignty norms, offering alternatives to what they view as US-centric norms, such as individual human rights, and using norms and standards to promote their influence. Nonstate actors and smaller states are often key players who try to overcome normative impasses and, in some cases, step in to fill perceived gaps. During the next decade, this increased competition will limit the effectiveness of international efforts to address global challenges and increase the risk of armed interstate conflict, although major powers are still likely to uphold norms in mutually beneficial areas. 

 

This paper examines the future of international norms during the next decade using the following definitions:

• Norms: Shared expectations about what constitutes appropriate behavior held by a community of actors. Norms can form at the international, regional, state, or sub-state level and attempt to guide desirable behavior.
  
• International norms: Widely shared expectations about what constitutes appropriate behavior among governments and certain non-state actors at the international level. Non-binding frameworks, such as voluntary codes of conduct or conventions, sometimes set the scene for more formal, binding agreements.
  
• International legal norms: Generally referred to as international law, these norms are binding on actors and typically formalized in written agreements, particularly treaties.
  
• Norm entrepreneurs: Actors who leverage the reputational sensitivity among states and other entities to develop and lobby for norms. Many norm entrepreneurs seek to encode norms in legal instruments to improve and broaden compliance.

 

(Graphic 1: Evolution of Selected International Norms Since the 19th Century - Click image to enlarge)

Norms have been central to the study and conduct of international politics for millennia; Plato and Aristotle considered how morality and justice shaped leaders’ decisionmaking and polities’ behavior, while the Catholic Church devised extensive norms for the conduct of sovereigns throughout Christendom. The norms of state sovereignty and inviolability of borders enshrined in the UN Charter trace their roots back hundreds of years, and the more widely studied international norm-building efforts since the end of WWII built on decades of efforts related to slavery, suffrage, humanitarian protections, copyright, and labor rights. Formal international agreements codified in the 19th and 20th centuries on law of the sea and commerce date back to longstanding European laws and customs. In addition, modern information communications technology and e-commerce relies on technology and commerce standards that emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries related to telegraph, postal, and radio communications.

The adoption and entry into force of the UN Charter following the end of WWII set in motion a dramatic expansion in economic, security, and human rights norm-setting and codification of legal agreements. Western democracies led the establishment of an assortment of international institutions, alliances, and norms of behavior in diverse areas including collective security, individual civil and political rights, rules-based international trade and financial systems, and conduct in increasingly accessible physical domains such as the poles and outer space.

Many security norms were designed to prohibit the most destructive behaviors that contributed to the two world wars. For example, in the 1960s, the nuclear nonproliferation regime was intended to disincentivize any additional states beyond Permanent UN Security Council (UNSC) members from acquiring nuclear weapons, while the norm against acquiring new territories or resources by force sought to contain aggressive territorial expansion.

During the 1990s, a range of states and non-state organizations capitalized on the weakness of proponents of absolute state sovereignty principles, such as post-Soviet Russia, and took additional steps to formalize individual rights norms, which some states interpreted as restrictions on sovereignty. States and transnational networks also banned certain conventional weapons, including land mines, and defined states’ responsibility to protect their citizens and justify external intervention when states failed to protect their citizens and when authorized by the UNSC.

Some scholars suggest that moves to broaden the interpretation and application of certain human rights and humanitarian norms have energized a stronger and more organized backlash, both from governments and domestic groups in democracies. At the same time, authoritarian countries—namely China and Russia—have amassed more power and gained increased confidence to champion alternative norms on the international stage.

Authoritarian governments, particularly China and Russia, are selectively opposing and trying to roll back normative changes made since the 1990s, related to human rights and systems of governance to defend their legitimacy and promote their interests at home and abroad. Their sometimes distinct efforts emphasize non-interference in the internal affairs of countries, based on their definition of national sovereignty. Although they have had mixed success promulgating new agreements in formal multilateral negotiations, over time, the effect of their actions has been to chip away at the political human rights norms championed by democracies in recent decades, such as minority and LGBTQ rights, and provide legitimacy to repressive regimes worldwide.

China, Russia, and many states in the Middle East and Global South are rhetorically advocating strict adherence to the UN Charter’s prohibition on interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states to enable their actions at home while leaving them room to disregard these restrictions in neighboring states.

• China, Russia, and other authoritarian countries, such as Egypt, have cooperated to frame their domestic crackdowns and military campaigns as valid responses to terrorist threats, including those against Uyghurs, Chechens, or the Muslim Brotherhood.
  
  
• China’s foreign and security policy continues to espouse non-intervention; however, Beijing has interfered in other states, notably by retaliating against those that are critical of China or that engage with Taiwan or the Dalai Lama. Western scholars argue that under President Xi Jinping, China has embraced more flexible and limited interpretations of non-intervention, to justify meddling in the internal affairs of neighboring states.
  
  
• China is pushing its own definition of democracy and touting its “whole process democracy” as a more representative and effective model than the US system, including by hosting its own international democracy forum and releasing a white paper timed to the US Democracy Summit in December 2021.

China and Russia are also taking more direct and sometimes-coordinated action in international forums to undermine norms related to individual human rights and security, respectively. China is particularly focused on pushing back against efforts to advance individual human rights, whereas Russia is more focused on constraining the use of force by the United States and its allies.

• China and Russia have attacked a range of Western-backed human rights norms at the UN, such as freedom of expression and LGBTQ rights. Russia condemns Western military interventions while defending its own interventions in Georgia, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. It advocates collectivist economic and cultural rights and prioritizes states’ rights over individual political freedoms.
  
  
• In the last five years, China and Russia have had more success weakening the mandates and institutional support for UN human rights country-specific monitoring mechanisms and accountability efforts than they had during the previous decade, judging from UN voting records and academics.

China and Russia are working closely to advance norms on emerging issues, such as cyber, space, and digital information, to promote their broader interests. China and Russia have won UN votes in support of some of their priorities, but their proposed norms most often fail to gain universal backing.

• China and Russia have also used regional and UN forums to coordinate positions and promote alternative cyber and space norms proposals. These proposals seek to constrain freedom of speech online and centralize Internet governance under government control.
  
  
• China and Russia insist that national governments have sole responsibility for deciding key policies that affect the information environment in their countries. Since 2018, Russia has used the UN “Open-Ended Working Group” to push its preferred norms on state control over information content as a universal cyber norm.
  
  
• Since at least 2016, China has persistently inserted language on state sovereignty and control into negotiations regarding international development finance and Internet governance, while deemphasizing Western-favored norms on responsible lending practices and individual freedoms. China’s surveillance law frameworks and environmental and labor standards have been internalized through formal legislation in many Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries, and BRI investments by China-controlled entities often lack the conditionality of IMF and World Bank projects.

Some democratic states that have long championed norms around individual rights and free trade are experiencing more internal debates and in some cases, growing opposition to the free flow of people and information. In recent years, many democracies have struggled with growing societal backlashes to influxes of migrants and refugees, amidst a backdrop of broader economic stagnation and intensified political polarization, much of which has been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.

• This internal polarization has made it more difficult to forge multilateral political coalitions and for some states to continue to press traditional foreign policy priorities. For example, several European countries have experienced significant swings in foreign policy positions following elections or even government collapse, further complicating the task of building consensus for EU positions. At the same time, ethno-nationalism and identity politics have reshuffled traditional political parties in some countries.
  
  
• Democracies with devolved or federalist governing structures, such as Australia, Brazil, India, and South Africa, have further complicated international norms and standard-setting efforts. Cities and other administrative units are championing their own standards and norms on issues ranging from energy efficiency and pollution to LGBTQ rights, often going beyond the national government’s positions and forcing courts to adjudicate.

Domestic clashes within democracies over issues such as pluralism and individual rights continue to seep into international discussions, and some disagreements have intensified because of emergency pandemic measures. Democracies are increasingly split over issues of state authorities and responsibilities, individual rights, and protections for marginalized groups, hampering consensus-building efforts in multilateral venues.

• Human rights: Some democracies have reduced moral and material support for intergovernmental mechanisms such as the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), UN special rapporteurs, and the International Criminal Court. Critics have pointed to the UN’s continued poor record in addressing some of the most egregious human rights violations as well as the growing influence of authoritarian states, such as China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Western NGOs have documented decreased rhetorical commitment for human rights norms during the past several years among many states, including Western democracies.
  
  
• Refugees: Many democracies have contravened the 1951 Refugee Convention by severely curtailing asylum rights and deporting refugees to countries where their safety is at risk. In addition, emergency pandemic measures have placed constraints on governments’ willingness to admit refugees.
  
  
• Free trade: Certain WTO members have come under criticism from other states and businesses for undermining open commerce and rules-based trade regimes by using national security or COVID-19-related justifications to erect protectionist trade barriers that advantage domestic industries.

While non-democracies and non-state actors have often disagreed with or defied individual rights-based norms, challenges from groups within prominent democratic actors are a newer phenomenon and potentially more destabilizing. Consensus among and to some degree within Western democracies historically has been necessary to broker and institutionalize controversial norms.

• Scholars argue that norms are more likely to decay when the international community fails to condemn violations than when violations are committed. Potential spoilers are encouraged when other norm breakers do not incur punishment or face marginalization.
  
  
• Other states, such as Canada, Australia, and Norway, continue to try to defend and advance humanitarian and human rights norms outside the areas of migration, but their efforts have hit opposition in multilateral forums.
  
  

Activists, NGOs, and smaller states are looking for ways to drive norms and fill gaps left by the perceived faltering by some democracies. Nonstate actors continue to contest the efficacy and legitimacy of international norms and institutions, often by building advocacy networks, harnessing technology, and working through state allies in key institutions. Some norms championed by nonstate actors conflict with the stated policy positions of the United States and its allies on topics such as nuclear disarmament, cybersecurity, climate change, and genetically modified organisms.

• Arms Control: Building on past successful examples of pushing through treaties on landmines and cluster munitions, a coalition of NGOs and mostly small states pushed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons through the UN in 2017. The treaty, which entered into force in 2021, prohibits the possession, use, and threat of use of nuclear weapons. Working alongside leading state proponents Austria, Ireland, and Mexico, nonstate advocates used a majority-voting process to negotiate the treaty outside the UN’s main disarmament machinery, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and without support from nuclear weapons states.
  
  
• NGOs have played an influential role in UN climate negotiations from the lead-up to the Paris Agreement in 2015 through the UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in late 2021. These organizations have lobbied state parties, advocated for action from sub-national levels of government, reported on negotiations, and monitored implementation. They have also implemented their own carbon reduction initiatives and pressed private companies to reduce emissions. Since 2015, however, many states have not provided details about how they will implement their commitments, and forging consensus on funding and verification has been difficult to achieve at UN climate meetings.
  
  
• Activists opposed to genetically modified organism (GMO) food have organized protests across dozens of countries and complicated trade talks among the United States, EU, and other actors for decades.

In addition to civil society NGOs and small states, commercial actors and industry-affiliated NGOs are increasing their participation in international discussions about norms, practices, and standards—looking to protect their assets and goals.

• Given slow movement toward voluntary norms and rules of conduct in cyberspace in formal UN discussions, private-sector actors and states such as France have proposed initiatives aimed at preventing attacks on critical infrastructure, improving cybersecurity, and reducing offensive operations in cyberspace. In 2018, France announced its Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, which condemns malicious cyber activities during peacetime.
  
  
• Governments, companies, and civil society organizations have worked together to promote multinational business codes of behavior. They have developed the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, the International Code of Conduct for private security companies, and the Global Network Initiative to encourage companies that have yet to sign onto these standards to adhere to international human rights, as well as environmental, and labor norms and standards. The UN’s endorsement in 2011 of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights marked an important juncture in developing norms around business conduct, and this has been followed by calls for an enforceable treaty.
  
  
• Industry-aligned groups, such as Global Climate Coalition and World Business Council on Sustainable development, have joined scientists and civil society organizations to convince states to expand their goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
  Nonstate actors, including NGOs, some private companies, and professional organizations, have demonstrated sophistication in setting and implementing norms on issues such as technology and climate change. These actors can leverage existing networks and new digital media to shape public attitudes. They can also encourage private compliance by controlling access to their platforms and wielding their significant financial leverage. However, nonstate actors, with the exception of large multinational corporations, lack the tools to require compliance, and they most often are not monitored or accountable outside their own organizations.
  
• Business and industry actors have the ability and incentive to influence technology and cyber norms because they produce content as well as software and hardware, own and operate critical Internet infrastructure, and are increasingly liable for cyber attacks against their clients. For example, technology companies can punish transgressions in real-time by enforcing Terms of Service agreements, or by naming and shaming violators.
  
  
• Professional codes of ethics have shaped behavior and withstood some normative challenges in emerging areas such as biotechnology. For example, after a scientist in China, Dr. He Jiankui, modified the germ line in a pair of twins in 2018, he was nearly universally shunned by the global scientific community.
  
  

During the coming decade, this diversified and competitive international environment will make it more challenging for many states to maintain commitments to existing norms, establish new norms, solve global challenges, and prevent escalatory behaviors.

• Selective adherence to norms: The broader range of influential actors with divergent interests and goals will further complicate efforts to maintain and monitor commitments to many established international norms. Many contemporary and future challenges will require buy-in from individuals and organizations at all levels. Diminishing consensus among the major state powers is likely to make it more difficult to condemn or punish bad behavior. In this fragmented environment, states and nonstate actors are likely to see fewer risks in ignoring certain norms, leading some to opt out entirely selectively adhere, or offer alternative norms.
  
  
• Difficult multilateral norm-setting in traditional venues: Establishing new norms to deal with longstanding or emerging issues will be more complicated and time consuming than it had been in previous eras because of competing normative visions and the lengthy negotiation process. More actors will have opportunities to block progress on rivals’ norms, undercut enforcement for violations, or use sabotage or disinformation campaigns. Treaty- making declined precipitously during the last decade compared with previous decades, judging from international legal periodicals, even as new technological developments and environmental challenges accelerated.
  
  
• Fragmenting to localized or regional norms: Some actors will work to shift norms-setting discussions away from the consensus-based intergovernmental institutions to majority-vote formats, or alternatively to regional or nonstate actor-led organizations. In some cases, negotiations on treaties will remain within UN architectures but take place in intergovernmental working groups where a self-selected group of actors controls the agenda. These forums could develop normative frameworks that bear the UN imprimatur while competing with or contradicting existing architectures, potentially undermining the effectiveness of international norms. If norms become more localized for regions or self-defined groups of countries, conducting business and ensuring compliance with future agreements will become even more difficult. Alternatively, norm discussions that begin at the regional level or among affinity groups of actors can serve as the catalyst for broader international negotiations, such as occurred with negotiation processes for the Antarctic and Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaties.
  
  
• Less collective action on global challenges: Eroding consensus among certain governments and political factions on the need to respect certain foundational principles will complicate or even stymie international cooperation on global challenges, such as mitigating climate change, dealing with refugees and migrants, minimizing risks from new technologies such as AI and biotechnology, and combating future pandemics. Cooperation in a fractured normative environment is more likely to occur within certain ideologically or regionally defined groups, which could help coalesce action to challenges at lower levels, but will prevent nations from mustering effective responses at the global level.
  
  
• Greater risk of confrontation: Declining adherence among some countries to norms on non-violability of borders, assassination, and use of certain weapons systems––in part because of advances in cyber, robotics, AI, and space technology––will increase the risk of miscalculation and conflict. Some of these technologies, if they remain outside normative frameworks, will raise uncertainty among policymakers and make it more likely they will take preemptive action. The availability of these technologies to nonstate actors will also raise the threats to states and risk drawing them into conflicts not of their choosing.

Major powers are still likely to seek to cooperate and uphold norms in mutually beneficial areas, even in an increasingly competitive environment. China and the United States, for example, will still share an interest in preventing further nuclear proliferation in East Asia and the Middle East, containing conflict escalation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, preventing global financial crises, containing future infectious disease outbreaks, and avoiding collisions in space. The norms that emerge may be less institutionalized than during the Cold War, but they could still serve as useful checks on risky behavior and help reign-in actions by allies or proxies that threaten to draw the great powers into a broader conflict.

Nonstate actors, along with a handful of key innovative economies, probably will have greater ability to establish norms on emerging technologies than in previous decades, as the pace of innovation and development outstrips most states’ ability to keep pace with new normative and regulatory structures. However, their ability to enforce compliance is likely to remain limited.

 

(Graphic 2: Outlook for International Norm Compliance - Click image to enlarge)

Over the long term, the future of international norms will depend heavily on the state of geopolitical competition, technological advancements, and societal dynamics. In the following table, we identified four scenarios for how norms could unfold during the next decade, focused on the interactions of democratic and authoritarian powers in the international system. Certain international norms may fall into some or all of these scenarios depending on the norm in question and dynamics among states. For example, human rights and national sovereignty in the information space are more likely to exist in bipolar, competing structures, whereas norms related to the climate and environment are more conducive to bottom-up community approaches.

 

(Graphic 3: Alternative Futures for International Norms - Click image to enlarge)

DEEPER LOOKS

Technology and the Future of Work

During the next two decades, technological innovations—including automation, online collaboration tools, artificial intelligence, and additive manufacturing—will reshape some fundamental aspects of how and where people work. The future workplace is likely to be increasingly flexible but also increasingly insecure as companies demand new skill sets while no longer providing employees with traditional benefits. A key uncertainty is whether the labor force will adjust quickly enough to meet the demands of the new working world. Scholars agree that although technological innovations will eliminate many jobs, they will also create new ones as firms shift labor into complementary tasks. However, the skills required and the locations of these jobs may not match the capabilities of the labor force—putting pressure on already stretched governments to help labor markets manage these new conditions.

New technologies are reshaping the workplace through automation, online collaboration tools, artificial intelligence, and additive manufacturing. Tasks that once seemed uniquely suited to human abilities, such as driving a car or diagnosing a disease, are already automated or potentially amenable to automation in the next decade. Emerging technologies are also making possible virtual labor mobility through Internet-based freelance platforms that match customers with self-employed service providers, as well as speed-of-light commercial data and software transmission.

Automation Continuing To Replace Some Jobs

In advanced economies, robots are increasingly supplanting humans for routine tasks and may take on more complex tasks in the coming decades as progress is made in artificial intelligence (AI). Companies probably will apply AI breakthroughs in object recognition, machine translation, robotic controls, and natural language processing as a labor-saving measure in white-collar professions.

• Automation is most widespread in jobs with midlevel technical skill requirements. However, employees with nonroutine skills that complement automated processes are in high demand and have seen rising wages. These nonroutine skills include emotional intelligence and teamwork, as well as critical thinking and problem solving skills.
  
  
• In the coming years, AI is likely to be applied to higher skill tasks, eliminating some jobs while significantly increasing the productivity of those workers who remain. Affected fields include law, medicine, finance, and software development. Lab technicians, chemical engineers, and optometrists are examples of professions particularly vulnerable to future AI applications.
  
  

(Graphic 1: WORK ACTIVITIES WITH HIGHER AUTOMATION POTENTIAL - Click image to enlarge)

 

An automation wave is likely to hit some developing economies during the next two decades, although their current automation levels are lower than those of advanced economies. The cost of automation and digital technology continues to decline globally, reducing barriers to new investment in robots. Developing economies with workforces that probably are vulnerable to disruptive automation include Brazil, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Romania, and Russia because their working populations are older and they earn relatively high wages.

• Some developing economies will struggle to industrialize as automation reduces the cost of manufacturing elsewhere. For example, as Asian manufacturers adopt automation and other innovative technologies, they will gain cost advantages derived from producing large volumes of goods. Exports of these products will drive down the prices of competing goods globally, making it difficult for small-scale manufacturers in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa to compete in the marketplace and reducing the number of industrial jobs in those regions. Instead, employment in those regions has been gravitating toward the lower paying services sector.

A key uncertainty about automation during the next few decades will be the degree of its disruptive effect on labor markets. Automation could create such efficiency that the number of well-paid jobs created is less than the number lost. Whether workers and companies will be able to meet retraining and education needs is unclear, given the pace of change. One 2013 study concluded that up to half of all US jobs were susceptible to being overtaken by the new forms of automation. More recent studies have looked closely at which job subtasks are automatable and found a smaller percentage of jobs at risk. The newer results concluded that 9 percent to 15 percent of jobs on average could be displaced—still highly disruptive, but on a scale that may permit workers, companies, and governments time to adapt without being overwhelmed.

 

(Graphic 2: THE FUTURE OF WORK IN SERVICES - Click image to enlarge)

Technologies Changing Where Jobs Are Performed

Companies are increasingly dividing jobs into discrete tasks that can be completed by teleworking employees or outsourced to sometimes geographically distant freelancers, further disconnecting work tasks from where those tasks are performed. Digitalization and Internet connectivity have facilitated this trend with innovations such as online document sharing, cloud storage, wireless connectivity, videoconferencing, and AI-augmented process management. During the next 20 years, advances in telepresence technologies, such as virtual reality, will allow more physical tasks to be completed remotely, expanding this trend beyond traditional office jobs.

• Long before we began to experience the workplace disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 2 million additional US workers had begun working from home at least part-time, bringing the total to 8 million US workers, according to US Census Bureau estimates, or more than 5 percent of the US workforce. Similar percentages of workers have reported working from home in Europe and Japan.
  
  
• Freelancing or “gig economy” web platforms facilitate outsourcing of office tasks, such as web development, writing and translation, design and multimedia, and administrative support, as well as consumer services such as ride-sharing, delivery, and household microtasks.
  
  
• Technological advances almost certainly will reshape more traditionally physical jobs as well, in industries such as mining, forestry, and oil and gas. Automated techniques allow for operations control or infrastructure inspection by remote workers who could “visit” multiple geographically distant sites in one day. Self-driving vehicles, drones, and other robotics are likely to accelerate this trend.

Parallel with the rise of offsite work within countries, companies in advanced economies are increasingly sourcing services to workers in emerging economies, particularly those in East and South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. International trade in digitally deliverable services—including financial and business services and computer programming—has grown at almost twice the rate of the global economy during the past 15 years and in 2018, contributed more than 3.5 percent of global economic output, double the value of international tourism that year.

• Workers in developing Asian countries are benefiting from new employment in cross-border freelanced services, such as software development and IT systems integration, but these freelancers receive relatively low average wages and have poor labor bargaining power.
  
  
• Three developing countries are among the top 10 countries with the largest share of digitally deliverable services in their total service exports: Sierra Leone (76 percent), Ghana (73 percent), and India (66 percent).
  
  
• Freelancers in Kenya are among the leading suppliers of writing and translation services globally, and in Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, freelancers are among the most active in supplying software development services.

Additive manufacturing—known as 3D printing—is also changing the location and composition of jobs as companies “reshore,” or localize, production plants. Additive manufacturing offers companies several advantages, such as the ability to make lighter weight parts, avoid wasting material, and save on shipping costs. The widespread adoption of this technology could eliminate manufacturing jobs in some emerging economies while creating new jobs in advanced economies in product design, customer relations, and computer programming.

• Many jobs associated with additive manufacturing offer higher pay and demand greater skill than traditional manufacturing jobs, but such jobs are also scarcer. For instance, software engineers are needed to modify the 3D printer computer code when a product is customized.
  
  
• The medical device industry has already widely adopted additive manufacturing, a trend probably accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic because the health care industry has worked to quickly leverage 3D printing for ventilator valve and personal protective equipment production. The automotive and aerospace manufacturing sectors are among those likely to generate the greatest number of 3D printing tasks.

Aging Workforces Spurring Automation

During the next two decades, the workforces of most of today’s largest economies will shrink as aging workers retire, increasing the need for automated processes. South Korea will lose 23 percent of its working-age population (ages 15-64), Japan 19 percent, Germany 13 percent, and China 11 percent, according to UN projections. Southern Europe’s advanced economies—such as Italy, Portugal, and Spain—make up the world’s most rapidly aging region; together their working-age populations will decline by more than 17 percent during the next 20 years.

Automation—traditional industrial robots and AI-powered task automation—almost certainly will spread quickly as companies look for ways to replace and augment an aging workforce. Companies with large cohorts of workers 55 and older are more likely to adopt robotics and other forms of automation as they anticipate the potential for declining workforce productivity. Industrial robots are currently concentrated in the United States, China, Germany, Japan, and South Korea, only one of which—the United States—does not have a shrinking workforce.

• Southern and East European economies probably will adopt more workplace automation, given the anticipated high rates of worker retirements. In particular, Italy, Russia, and Spain have lower-than-average rates of industrial robot adoption, suggesting that increased automation could spread to those countries.
  
  
• Automation and AI will also be adapted for aging workers in white-collar workplaces. For example, networked and smart hearing aids could enhance communication, and robotic exoskeletons could increase personal mobility.

Pandemic Response Leading to New Ways, Locations for Working

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, companies worldwide have quickly expanded technology-driven workplace changes. Some companies have encouraged employees to work remotely rather than commute to worksites, and many businesses have shifted to digitally connected virtual teams, eliminating the need for business travel. Although some of these changes are likely to remain after the pandemic ends, others may be discontinued if companies and workers decide in-person engagement is critical to performance.

• Videoconferencing is replacing daily commutes to an office and periodic travel for conferences. As quarantine measures were widely implemented in March 2020, office videoconferencing apps saw record downloads by users in Italy and Spain—countries that previously had below-EU-average rates of work from home. Traffic on one videoconferencing app rose from 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019 to more than 300 million in April 2020.
  
  
• For office workers already struggling with the high cost of housing in urban centers, temporary remote work protocols have raised interest in permanently working remotely from lower cost locations. When the COVID-19 crisis has ended, employers are likely to maintain larger percentages of remote and freelance workers, even while potentially facing questions related to adjusted pay scales, and mechanisms for employee monitoring and feedback.

Technology is also filling and creating new roles in the services sector, in particular where the public is demanding a shift to low contact or automated options. For example, online streaming of entertainment is eliminating jobs in movie theaters and live performance venues while digital platforms are creating new job opportunities in shopping and delivery services.

• Many countries are testing robots and drones—including the United States, Chile, China, Ghana, Israel, and South Korea—to replace humans in high-contact tasks, such as medical testing, surface sterilization, and package delivery.
  
  
• Even in industries where telework is not an option—such as manufacturing, farming, and food processing—companies probably will pursue technological fixes to keep their businesses operating with fewer workers. As in previous crises, companies have been making capital investments in automation, which is likely to accelerate the trend in some industries.

The changing landscape of work raises broader implications, especially for advanced economies, concerning social stability and the role of governments on issues of inequality, social identity, and regulation.

Increasing Inequality

The hollowing out of the middle-income workforce in advanced economies—a process under way for the past two decades—almost certainly will continue, with profits disproportionately going to some high-skill workers and the corporations that hold the new technologies. Automation has replaced mostly middle-skill jobs even as employers add workers at both the bottom and top of the pay scale—a trend known as “job polarization.”

For example, across Western Europe and the United States, the employment share for traditional middle-income jobs, such as machine operators, metalworkers, and office clerks is decreasing. At the same time, low-paying services-sector jobs, such as sales representatives, as well as high-income jobs for doctors, engineers, and other professionals are increasing.

Overall compensation for workers relative to economic output probably will also shrink during the coming two decades. Automation has decreased the overall share of worker take-home pay relative to corporate shareholder profits because decreases in wages and jobs displacement have not been fully offset by the potential of automation to produce more goods and drive new employment in related industries.

• Although many new high paying, high-skill jobs have been created in the past 20 years, the total wages and benefits those workers earn do not surpass the lost wages and benefits of the displaced workers.
  
  
• In the years ahead, some higher skill professionals are likely to face declining wages as new technologies begin to supplant the routine tasks they perform—a development that will further contribute to downward pressure on worker pay.

Digital freelance, or “gig economy,” platforms are contributing to declining aggregate worker earnings and benefits in advanced economies, since most freelancers work part-time and have lower-than-average overall take-home pay. As remote work becomes more common, companies may increasingly substitute freelancing for work performed offsite by employees as a cost-saving measure.

• Freelancers, who do not receive employer-provided benefits, are more vulnerable to employment loss during a business downturn. Payment is also more at risk for freelancers. At some point, about 90 percent of freelancers have been denied payment after completing a task based on what the customer claims—often unfairly, according to freelancers—is subpar work.

Even though aggregate wages probably will fall in advanced economies, a small portion of workers will see rising wages and profits. Technology innovators and workers who perform nonroutine and cognitive work that is enhanced—not replaced—by automation almost certainly will continue to see their wages increase relative to those of other workers. Overall worker compensation will further concentrate in key digital domains affected by automation, such as online search, electronic communication, and online shopping.

• A handful of companies enjoy near-monopolies in these domains, benefiting from network effects inherent in digital services. That is, the larger the user base of these digital services grows, the more desirable these companies’ services are to consumers, even though the marginal cost of expanding their services is close to zero. Consequently, workers in jobs with access to these monopoly profits will see higher wage growth.

The pandemic is accelerating this trend as consumers avoid brick-and-mortar stores and companies shift to e-commerce and work-from-home arrangements, giving online platforms additional market share. Although consumers probably will revert to their pre-pandemic lifestyles after the pandemic, surging shares of e-commerce companies in China, Europe, India, and the United States suggest that investors judge a substantial portion of the behavioral shift is likely to stick.

The need for retraining, particularly among lower and middle-income workers, could exacerbate income inequality, particularly if workers bear the burden individually. Low-income workers are likely to be unable to afford the certification necessary to obtain higher paid employment and thus be relegated to low-skill jobs. In addition, workers who are retraining could lack information on which training programs will pay off with future work assignments, exacerbating the skills mismatch that already leaves higher skilled positions unfilled.

Reshaping Social Identities

Changes to the nature, location, and compensation structure of work in advanced economies during the next two decades will further reshape white-collar workers’ social identities. Many people gain self-worth from their work and tend to identify closely with their workplace goals. Physical workplaces provide social cohesion and help build institutional trust in modern society. Changes and dislocations that many blue-collar and manufacturing workers in advanced economies experienced in the late 1990s will increasingly affect white-collar and service workers as companies begin disaggregating, outsourcing, and automating knowledge-worker jobs.

• At the same time, many younger workers in advanced economies are eager to adopt more flexible and creative employment opportunities offered by workplace changes. Technology is enabling work to be more about tasks and less about job positions, allowing workers more choice on how and where to complete the tasks. Research shows that those who choose flexible working arrangements out of preference, not necessity, are positive about future changes to the workplace.
  
  
• Polling in advanced economies during the past decade has shown that rising generations are less attached to institutional corporate structures and more eager to control their work. Similarly, younger business owners and hiring managers are more likely to allow nontraditional workplace practices, according to a survey of US firms.
  
  
• Even so, many younger workers also experience anxiety and depression because of the less stable nature of gig or freelance work. A 2018 survey of Canadian millennials found that those with precarious employment—defined as permanent part-time work without traditional benefits—experienced a significantly higher prevalence of mental health concerns.

With automation poised to command a larger share of routine physical and cognitive tasks, workers will be expected to innovate, facilitate teamwork, and apply skills across different classes of tasks. Solutions to problems will be more readily crowdsourced—a method that is often more effective than relying on deep expertise alone.

• To succeed, workers will need to continually acquire new skills, including using insights from real-time data analytics that artificial intelligence can generate from increasingly digitized homes and workplaces.

New Issues for Governments To Manage

As these trends unfold, the public is likely to increasingly demand that governments manage the dislocations caused by new technologies. Governments probably will have an incentive to play a role in managing and smoothing labor market disruptions, but many governments may not have the capacity to manage these issues when faced with a host of other challenges.

• Governments most likely will face tough choices between investing in the current workforce and providing benefits to displaced and aging workers. Record levels of government debt in both advanced and developing economies, along with the rising overall costs of aging populations, could limit new programs for reskilling, healthcare, and retirement. Even in Sub-Saharan countries on the verge of a youth bulge, large older worker cohorts nearing retirement probably will strain the minimal elder care programs in place. In the long term, if governments neglect education and infrastructure, growth probably will slow.
  
  
• Governments will have a regulatory and legal role in defining relations between workers and employers. The new work landscape may include today’s problems of bad business practices, gender and race discrimination, and fraud, as well as new types of bias in online “gig worker” employment platforms.
  
  
• The growing trend of cross-border freelancing may require new regulatory frameworks, within and among states. Online freelancers may be vulnerable to cyber fraud, cyber attacks, and outages that have the potential to damage their livelihoods and, in aggregate, the broader economy. For instance, cryptocurrencies could become digital services workers’ preferred channel for payment, but in the event of financial system stress, cryptocurrencies may not have the backing of central banks, leaving online workers at greater risk.
  
  
• The current era of deceptive digital material—including manipulated images—and cyber hacking will challenge freelance employment platforms to maintain credibility with their remote workforces. The problems could range from digital reputation manipulation and large-scale theft of other employees’ work to the possible macroeconomic disruption of core digital-economy platforms being taken offline through malice or natural disaster. These types of potential market failures in the nonvirtual economy are often the subject of government regulation.

DEEPER LOOKS

The Future of Women’s Rights

After decades of improvements in women’s formal education, economic participation, and political leadership, progress in many countries has slowed in recent years, due to the slowing progress in some regions against higher-level human development goals, strongly held views of women’s roles in a number of countries, and the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, deep-seated patriarchal attitudes are likely to remain a hindrance to gender equality in some regions during the next two decades. Some polling and research indicates that these attitudes may change over generational periods, with the potential for more rapid change due to societal disruption, such as wars and perhaps the pandemic. Expanding Internet access and e-commerce platforms over time could also enable more women in more places to push for greater equality, as well as improve their prospects for employment and higher levels of education, but also might facilitate repression by authoritarian regimes.

For many decades, the world has seen large increases in gender equality, and in most countries, the legal barriers to women’s educational, economic, social, and political participation are gone. Worldwide, women are more educated today than at any point in history, and gender gaps between women’s and men’s academic attainments are rare in countries with high levels of educational achievement. In fact, women in some 50 countries on average have achieved a higher level of education than men have, and in others, they live longer and are healthier.

Female labor force participation rose markedly in the 20th century, and in a majority of countries at all income levels women’s participation in paid labor is higher today than it was in 1990. Since the end of World War II, 64 countries on every continent have had at least one elected or appointed female head of state. Eighty-five percent of them took office after 1990. Latin America and the Caribbean are notable with 12 of the region’s 33 countries having had female heads of state (including presidents and prime ministers), with women currently leading Aruba, Barbados, St. Maarten, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Growing Say in Foreign Policy. An increasing number of countries are incorporating advancement of gender equality into their foreign policy establishment and agendas. As of March, 32 countries had female foreign ministers, 25 had female ministers of defense, and several had ambassador-level positions with the explicit aim of promoting women’s rights. Sweden and Mexico have instituted explicitly “feminist” foreign policies—which prioritize devoting resources to improving women’s rights as well as ensuring representation in foreign and security institutions—with possibly more countries following suit in the near future.

Exercising Greater Choice. As women have gained opportunities, they are seeking roles in society beyond those traditionally afforded them. In Japan, women are consciously postponing or foregoing marriage, partly reflecting their dissatisfaction with enduring societal expectations that women will continue to perform the bulk of unpaid domestic chores even when they work outside the home. Moreover, labor force participation rates for women in Japan have increased during the past several decades. Similarly, Brazilian women have significantly increased their participation in the workforce since 1990, and they are prioritizing careers and other forms of personal goals over large families,
in part because of higher rates of education for women and greater urbanization.

Increasing Public Advocacy. Women have also used their greater political voice to shed new light on harassment, discrimination, and violence through social movements, such as #MeToo, India’s #IWillGoOut for the unhindered right to go out in public, and Latin America’s #NiUnaMenos, spotlighting violence against women, and through myriad marches, protests, and on-line campaigns. In early 2020, millions of Mexican women went on a national strike to protest gender violence—a move enabled by sympathetic employers and universities.

International Recognition of Women’s Issues. During the past 25 years, countries have come together at the UN to pass several landmark agreements that protect and empower women, including the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995 with the goal of achieving legal gender equality, UN Security Council resolution 1325 on “Women and Peace and Security” affirming women’s vital role in resolving conflicts and maintaining peace, and the UN Millennium Development Goals in 2000, which included “gender equality and empowerment of women and girls” as one of its tenets.

Agricultural Practices. Global water demand for agriculture—the single largest consumer of water—is projected to increase by 19 percent from current levels by 2050. By 2040, about 40 percent of all irrigated agriculture is expected to face extremely high water stress.

(Graphic 1: GENDER GAP TRENDS - Click image to enlarge)

Despite these initiatives and advances, progress toward gender equality is slowing in some areas. To some extent, this reflects the slowing gains in overall human development; for example, basic levels of education have largely been met but expanding access to secondary education is a more difficult challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how quickly progress can be reversed for women, particularly because women have been more likely to stay at home to care for children. Although women are the primary producers of food in many countries, they have limited or no rights to land ownership in some parts of the world. Even where laws allow women to own land, such as in Kenya, no titles have been passed to women.

Physical Abuse Levels Remain High. Across all societies, women continue to face physical risk and dangers at home and work. Sexual violence—including at the hands of family members or domestic partners—remains a global scourge. A WHO study in 2020 estimates that more than one in four women have experienced physical or sexual violence form an intimate partner in their lifetime. The UN estimated in 2018 that globally, 137 women per day are killed by a partner or family member. Russia and Hungary, for example, have reduced protections for women, including decriminalizing domestic and sexual violence. Multiple studies also show that violence against women reduces economic productivity, reducing global output by as much as 4 percent, by one estimate. A number of recent studies indicate that globalization and expanding access to the Internet and social media have increased the sexual exploitation of girls and women.

Continued Discrimination in the Workplace. World Economic Forum data indicate that the global gender gap in both paid labor participation and wage equality has actually widened since 2017. A survey completed between 2013-2018 of 2,300 publically listed companies in 14 well-established industries across a range of sectors, including energy, materials, industrials, consumer products, utilities, and waste services, indicated that women hold only 13 percent of board seats. Globally, women are more women are more likely than men are to work in the precarious and ill-paid informal sector, far less likely to start their own businesses, and are underrepresented in STEM fields. One study in 2019 indicates that by 2030, an estimated 40-160 million women may need to transition into higher skilled roles; by comparison, 60-275 million men may need to transition.

Hurdles to Political Participation. Even with a dramatic rise in female legislators since the 1990s, the proportion worldwide is only about 25 percent. In some countries, women who seek or attain political office have to deal with threatened or actual violence, including murder, often deterring other women from striving for public office. Subordination of women to men regardless of educational level is enshrined in family law in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Deep-seated patriarchal attitudes worldwide, as well as some economic and demographic trends, are likely to remain a hindrance to gender equality during the next two decades. Although a Pew survey from 2018 indicates that attitudes are shifting—in a majority of countries surveyed, younger people are more likely to favor gender egalitarianism—which suggests that these attitudes may change over generational periods, about 50 percent of respondents to a UNDP survey in 2020 claimed that men make better political leaders and business executives.

Similarly, a Pew survey in 2020 across 34 countries representing views from each global region on gender equality reported that 40 percent of respondents stated that men should have preferential treatment when jobs are scarce, despite the vast majority of respondents stating it was important for women in their countries to have the same rights as men.

Role of Societal Structures and Traditions. Patriarchal family structures that remain the norm in several parts of the world often perpetuate gender inequality. Child brides—particularly prevalent in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia—are particularly powerless, cut off at an early age from educational and economic opportunities, and at high risk for both domestic violence and maternal injury and death. Many societies’ acceptance or rejection of gender equality could hinge on whether they see it as an alien or Western value. Any values discussion may be further complicated by continued large migration flows across national borders, which will bring groups with widely varying views on gender equality into close proximity.

The ultimate in devaluation of women and girls in a society—denial of their right to live—is manifested by “femicide,” “dowry deaths,” “honor killings,” and other assorted murders of females worldwide. The number of nations with skewed sex ratios as the result of the abortion of female fetuses and killings of newborn baby girls quadrupled between 1990 and 2016. Sex-selected abortion is most prevalent in China and India, although it is also common in the South Caucasus, Southeast Europe, and other countries with a preference for sons.

Impact of Economic and Demographic Trends. Pandemic-related economic problems will place fiscal constraints on many countries that will reduce public outlays for health, education, and infrastructure that women in many countries rely on. Developed countries may also react to the pandemic’s disruption to supply chains by on-shoring or automating manufacturing, adding to strains on developing countries where women’s rights face the greatest challenges. The growing burden of caring for increasingly aging populations, especially in Europe and East Asia, is also likely to fall disproportionately on women who provide most of the care in many societies.

The Promise of Technology. Technological advances during the next two decades could provide opportunities for more women to improve their prospects for employment, attain higher levels of education, and advocate for their rights, if accompanied by a supportive societal and cultural environment. Social media platforms have been essential for connecting women with common concerns, promoting movements such as #MeToo and India’s #IWillGoOut movement, and organizing massive demonstrations. As Internet access expands globally, more women and girls could have better educational opportunities and access to information. In addition, a growing number of e-commerce sites are providing a means for women entrepreneurs to gain access to financing and global markets. The UN, for example, is sponsoring an e-Trade for Women initiative that seeks to develop women digital entrepreneurs in developing countries.

A Pandemic Silver Lining? The COVID-19 pandemic may have the potential to catalyze societal shifts in attitudes toward gender equality during the next two decades. Some equality breakthroughs in the 20th century were catalyzed by global and regional cataclysms that reordered societies. For example, many Western women gained the vote as the result of the geopolitical and societal upheavals of World War I, and women entered the workforce in large numbers during World War II. Historians have also cited Rwandan women’s progress following the 1994 genocide, which forced dramatic shifts in women’s roles in that country, including gender parity in its legislature and the right of women to own land and work in paid employment.

In the COVID-19 era, it became apparent that a large number of jobs viewed as “essential”—from medical professionals to grocery store employees—are performed by women in frequently perilous conditions. As a result, women—including those in traditionally low-status care work—could gain a new platform for demanding a greater voice, respect, and financial reward.

DEEPER LOOKS

The Future of Water:
Water Insecurity Threatening Global Economic Growth, Political Stability

Governments, industry, and civil society will face an increasing risk of water insecurity during the next two decades as demand grows and supply is increasingly strained. Moreover, poor governance and resource management, development practices, agriculture, and environmental degradation are also likely to diminish the quantity and quality of water supplies in many parts of the world. While developing countries will continue to experience more acute and pervasive water insecurity, some developed countries will also face strains on their water supplies. Countries that are unable to address water-related challenges probably will face a confluence of challenges, including greater risk of disease, growing inequality, poor economic growth, and a heightened risk of internal political instability. Shared water resources among states are increasingly likely to become flashpoints as water security diminishes and geopolitical competition grows.

Population growth, lifestyle changes, development, and agricultural practices will contribute to an increasing demand for water during the next 20 years. Global water use is likely to increase by 20 to 50 percent above current levels by 2050, with industrial and domestic sectors growing at the fastest pace. Agriculture will remain the largest overall consumer of water, but the relative increase to 2050 is likely to be smaller than other sectors.

• As states’ economies grow and people move up the income ladder, their lifestyles often become more water intensive. This trend will occur predominantly through indirect means, such as greater consumption of water intensive foods such as meat, as well as through increased demand for goods that require large quantities of water to produce, such as cars, electronics, clothing, and larger homes.
  
  
• Average groundwater use per person probably will increase during the next 20 years. In large parts of the Middle East and South Asia, as well as in Beijing and Mexico City, groundwater is the primary source of water, but years of overexploitation, pollution, and utilization of non-renewable fossil aquifers have severely degraded and reduced the supplies, in some cases irreversibly.
  
  
• In many parts of the world, populations already face water insecurity—defined as the availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems, and production. Each year, at least four billion people, nearly half in China and India, experience severe water scarcity for at least one month of the year. Nearly 500 million people are exposed to water scarcity all year long. As of 2020, about 2.1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water or reliable water service.

Development Practices. Many industrial and infrastructure development practices, including overuse of groundwater, surface water diversions, large dams, unregulated mining and extractive industries, and urban development without adequate sanitation, erode water security by reducing soil capacity to store water, thereby decreasing groundwater recharge, and increasing evaporation, erosion, and pollution. Globally about 80 percent of industrial and municipal wastewaters are discharged untreated into waterways that communities use for drinking, bathing, and agriculture. Groundwater pollution is of particular concern as contaminants move more slowly through groundwater than surface water, sometimes taking years or decades to affect water quality.

• In megacities such as Dhaka, Karachi, and Lagos, poor sanitation and waste management practices will increasingly strain water supplies in the next two decades. Lagos, for example, has 200 informal settlements, and 80 percent of residents rely on private water boreholes, increasing the risk of sewage contamination or water supplies.
  
  
• About 3,700 large hydropower dams are planned or under construction worldwide, primarily in Africa and Asia, according to Western academic reporting. These structures often lack careful design, regulation, and management, causing long-term water security problems, such as fragmentation of river systems, damage to fisheries and aquatic ecosystems, increased riverbank and coastal erosion, disruption and flooding of local communities, and decreased water quality.
  
  

(Graphic 1: China's Three Gorges Dam, the Largest Hydropower Structure in the World - Click image to enlarge)

Agricultural Practices. Global water demand for agriculture—the single largest consumer of water—is projected to increase by 19 percent from current levels by 2050. By 2040, about 40 percent of all irrigated agriculture is expected to face extremely high water stress.

• Irrigation and planting practices are often inefficient and unsustainable; globally about half of the water withdrawn for irrigation does not reach the intended crops or is oversupplied through practices such as flood irrigation and does not result in crop production. In addition, poor soil and planting or other agriculture techniques such as tilling, reduce water infiltration into the ground and increase evaporation.
  
  
• Agricultural wastewater runoff is the most prevalent global water quality challenge. The discharge of large quantities of nitrogen and phosphorus into waterways promotes toxic algal blooms and reduces oxygen, causing die-offs of fish and other aquatic organisms.
  
  

(Graphic 2: Abandoned Fishing Boats Along Former Coast of the Aral Sea - Click image to enlarge)

Environmental Degradation and Climate. Anthropogenic degradation of landscapes and waterscapes as well as climate change are affecting the quantity, quality, and timing of water supplies. Natural land, water, and climate systems are a complex, interdependent network, such that a change in one system can have wide ranging and unintended consequences in the others.

• On average, about 40 percent of all rainfall over land originates from local plant transpiration and evaporation, although the percentage is much higher in some regions. Degraded landscapes that change plant composition or density can have significant impacts on local weather and water availability.
  
  
• Multiple climate models and weather observations indicate increasing variability, intensity, and occurrence of droughts and floods over the next several decades. Rainfall almost certainly will decline in mid-latitude regions, and all areas are expected to have higher evaporation rates because of rising temperatures, increasing demand for water for irrigation. At the same time, increased energy and water in the atmosphere is increasing the likelihood of extreme storms and other weather phenomenon.

In many countries, ineffective governance and policies fail to address—and frequently enable—the mismatch between water demand and supply. Corruption and a lack of trust in governing institutions, low prioritization of water issues, and minimal coordination among government entities, the private sector, and civil society all contribute to this mismatch.

Corruption and Trust. Government corruption in the water sector often hinders full and fair enforcement of laws and regulations, diverts money from the development or maintenance of water projects, causes inequities in water distribution, and inflates costs. Corrupt governments frequently invest in large water infrastructure projects, including dams, because they are easy to skim from and offer political as well as economic returns.

• Brazil’s "Operation Car Wash" scandal that began in 2014 revealed corruption related to the awarding of construction contracts, including several mega-dams in the Amazon River Basin. The consortium behind one dam was investigated for paying millions of dollars in bribes to the ruling party at the time to secure the concession. This dam destroyed hundreds of square miles of rain forest and crop lands, displacing at least 20,000 people.

Prioritization and Blame Deflection. Many governments consider water governance and management a lower level priority, including in some wealthy, technically savvy countries. Water regulation in some cases is buried in uninfluential ministries or agencies or is relegated as a secondary resource that is managed in a piecemeal manner from other government bodies. In some countries, it is separated from the management and governance of other sectors, including agriculture, energy, and industry, despite water being a critical resource for all of those activities.

Governments at times have both ignored, or inappropriately invoked climate change or the actions of upstream countries as the primary cause of water insecurity, usually to cover for the failures of environmental governance or to gain or maintain a position of power in a shared water basin.

• In Iran, the government and local scientists have blamed the extensive shrinkage of Lake Urmia in the country’s far northwest solely on climate change. Academic research, however, indicates that the nearly tripling of water consumption for irrigation in the basin since the 1980s, the lack of enforced water regulation and environmental laws, and limited wastewater treatment were the main causes of the lake’s decline.

Coordination. Lack of coordination among government agencies, the private sector, and civil society frequently leads to mismanagement and the over-allocation of water resources. The interdependencies among water, energy, and food are often not recognized in water governance and management. Most notably, energy, agriculture, and water agencies often do not coordinate water use or water regulations, even when they draw water from the same source. In addition, inadequate monitoring, data collection, and data sharing frequently hinder a government’s ability to manage water resources effectively and efficiently.

(Graphic 3: THE EARTH'S WATER AND CURRENT HUMAN USE - Click image to enlarge)

Developing and emerging economies will be most vulnerable to water security risks during the next 20 years, given their naturally complex, variable, and hazardous hydrography and their governance shortcomings. According to the World Bank, if current poor water management policies continue, by 2040 water security will decline in many areas that are not naturally water scarce—such as parts of Central Africa, East and Southeast Asia, and Latin America—and water security will further deteriorate in areas where water resources are naturally in short supply—including large stretches of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel.

• Most Middle East and North African countries are likely to see continued steep declines in their overall water security because of ongoing conflicts, weak or corrupt governments, increasing demand, high levels of pollution, unsustainable ground and surface water use, and natural water scarcity. Countries of particular concern include Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. In addition, many of these countries—including those in the Jordan, Nile, and Tigris River Basins—have ongoing transboundary water disputes with neighbors, potentially further complicating and reducing their ability to more effectively and sustainably manage water resources. Parts of southern Africa, the Sahel, and Horn regions are likely to continue to have high levels of water insecurity, especially the Lake Chad and Nile River Basins, and parts of Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia, coastal South Africa, and the Sudans.
  
  
• Many countries in South and Central Asia and parts of Southeast Asia are also likely to face declining water security because of corruption, unenforced or poor environmental laws, high levels of pollution, environmentally degrading development, transboundary or internal water disputes, and growing water demand from agriculture, textiles, and fishing. Geopolitical tensions could strain existing water-sharing agreements or prevent future cooperation.
  
  
• China, especially the northern region around Beijing and along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, is likely to have rising demand and pollution problems because in part to ongoing development projects. China also is likely to contribute to increasing water challenges for its downstream neighbors, such as Bangladesh, India, and Laos, and international trading partners because of its upstream development along transboundary rivers—including the Brahmaputra and Mekong Basins—and its increasing global demand for water intensive goods, such as meat and electronics. Control of critical water sources may also have been a contributing factor in the recent border skirmishes between China and India.
  
  
• Within Latin America, Brazil, Bolivia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are some of the countries at the highest risk of declining water security through 2040. These countries have some combination of weak governments, large projected population growth, current water security issues, and internal conflict.

Many developed countries are likely to face more frequent and severe water security risks during the next 20 years but most have the technical and economic capacity to adapt to or mitigate the impacts. Most water security challenges in the developed world probably will be localized and short term.

• More arid areas in developed countries probably are at risk of spatially and temporally localized water insecurity, including many parts of Australia and areas along the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
  
  
• The push for economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to encourage some countries to relax environmental and regulatory laws or support less environmentally friendly development projects that could cause long-term harm to their water security and overall societal and economic wellbeing.

More frequent and severe water security problems during the next 20 years are likely to touch almost all elements of global life, including personal security, economic growth, political stability, and interstate conflict.

Personal Security. Declining water security almost always equates to a decrease in individual livelihoods, health, and overall wellbeing and is felt unequally within countries. Poor and vulnerable groups usually pay more proportional to their income than affluent neighbors for water, typically of a lesser quality. This disparity contributes to a water-poverty link where water insecure populations tend to lose more work and education hours to illness or taking care of ill family members and to daily water gathering activities.

• In the developing world, women and children are most often responsible for retrieving water, in many cases traveling several hours to access supplies. In addition, at least 443 million school days are lost each year because of water-related illnesses, according to a development NGO.
  
  
• The rural poor disproportionately depend on the natural environment, especially rivers, lakes, and wetland habitats, to sustain or supplement livelihoods and food security. When governments or industry develop water resources without adequate consideration for environmental wellbeing and sustainability, they often widen the poverty gap between rural and urban dwellers.
  
  

One of the greatest water security risks is the deterioration of a population’s health, particularly the increased prevalence of disease. This deterioration is especially true where water pollution is high and populations lack access to adequate sanitation and wastewater treatment. An estimated 80 percent of all diseases and illnesses in the developing world are waterborne, and others spread more easily when populations lack access to safe water for handwashing, according to UNICEF and the WHO.

• Treatable diarrheal diseases, stemming from drinking unsafe water and a lack of adequate sanitation, cost the lives of at least 1.6 million children under the age of five each year, according to the WHO. Water-related diseases affect at least 1.5 billion people annually.
  
  
• Water scarcity has indirect health impacts as well. Already, about half of the developing world’s hospital beds are occupied by people with water-related illness, complicating efforts to manage other health crises, such as the current pandemic. Also, as rivers and lakes dry up, animals may seek out drinking water in more heavily populated areas, increasing the chance of contact between humans and wildlife and the disease-carrying insects they host.
  
  

Economic Security. Reduced water security during the next 20 years is likely to harm businesses, industries, and the overall economic wellbeing of many countries. Water is essential for creating and maintaining jobs, with at least half of the global workforce employed in water and natural-resource dependent industries, including agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, manufacturing, recycling, construction, and transportation. Economic modeling by the World Bank indicates that if current water governance policies are continued, some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Asia GDP growth rates will shrink by as much as 6 percent by 2050 because of water-related losses in agriculture, health, income, and property.

• During the past 25 years, low income countries with access to adequate safe water and sanitation experienced an average GDP growth of 3.7 percent per year. Conversely, countries with limited access to safe water and sanitation but similar incomes averaged growth of only about 0.1 percent in GDP per year during the same time period.
  
  
• Companies that responded to a 2016 survey reported $14 billion in water-related impacts, a fivefold increase from 2015, and a quarter of companies experienced detrimental impacts from water. All companies expect water risks to affect them to varying degrees within the next six years.

Political Stability. During the next two decades, declining water security is likely to exacerbate existing social grievances and divisions, potentially triggering or worsening conflict between societal groups and industry sectors and increasing the risk of political instability.

• Many parts of the world have already experienced civil unrest or political discontent because of water-related problems, which are likely to become more frequent and potentially more severe during the next 20 years. In the last 10 years, mass protests related to water, some of which have become violent, have occurred in Algeria, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, and South Africa.

Interstate Relations. Contestation over the management of shared river and groundwater basins probably will increase during the next two to three decades, as water demand, pollution, and environmental degradation increase. Agreements over shared water basins in the past have decreased the risk of conflict among stakeholders, but given the intensification of water security risks and a more competitive geopolitical landscape, cooperation in combination with good water governance and management is likely to be more difficult to achieve in the years ahead.

In addition, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments will face stronger pressure from their populations to improve their economies, requiring adequate and sustainable water supplies. Countries that share a single water resource are likely to feel increasing pressure to gain proprietary rights over the use of that water from neighbors.

• Approximately 300 surface water basins and 600 shared aquifers cross international borders, but many lack effective, coordinated management mechanisms or sustainable water use agreements.
  
  
• The presence of an agreement between countries that share a water resource does not guarantee effective or sustainable management of resources. In some cases—including the Indus and Nile River Basins—the agreement itself is inadequate or does not allow for effective water management, and in some cases constrains governments or reduces their willingness to enact potentially more sustainable water management practices.
  
  

(Graphic 4: Fishing Boats on the Mekong River in Northern Thailand - Click image to enlarge)

 

Many of the world’s most important transboundary basins are already overexploited and severely degraded. We assess that the following basins are at the greatest risk of potential conflict in the next few decades: the Aral Sea Basin, the Brahmaputra River, the Lake Chad Basin, the Euphrates-Tigris Basin, the Indus River Basin, the Jordan River Basin, the Mekong River Basin, and the Nile River Basin.

DEEPER LOOKS

The Future of Public Activism:
Populations Poised To Increase Pressure Worldwide

Over the next two decades, populations in every region and in every type of political system are likely to demand more from their political and corporate leaders, potentially prompting those leaders to be more responsive and possibly accountable but also risking societal divisions, broader repression, and less coherent policies. During the past decade, public activism—direct public action intended to impart social or political change—has been on the rise in every region, including high-profile protests and demonstrations. The combined increases in prosperity, education, urbanization, and access to communication technologies are equipping people to express their interests and needs and seek more government action. As public activism continues to expand and potentially becomes more sophisticated, governments of all types will seek avenues to respond—either by attempting to appease public demands or by actively suppressing avenues for activism. Over time, this dynamic will offer the prospect for more accountable leadership and improved democratic health, but in the near term, it could increase factionalism and reduce policy coherence and effective strategic planning.

Worldwide trust and confidence in public and private institutions and their leaders have been persistently low during the past decade, especially among nonelites. Various polls consistently indicate that approximately half the nonelite public distrusts institutions, including government, business, media, and nongovernmental organizations. Elites are defined as people who are college educated, in the top 25 percent of household income in each market, and exhibit significant media consumption. According to one study of 16 high-income countries over several years, the nonelite respondents claiming trust in government during the period 2012-2020 never exceeded 45 percent. In an online survey of 28 geographically diverse medium- and high-income countries, the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer found that more than half the people surveyed said the “system” was failing them, and only 15 percent indicated it was working for them.

• Dissatisfaction With Democracy. A 2019 Pew Research Center survey conducted in 34 democratic countries found that a median of 52 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with the way democracy was working, and only 44 percent were satisfied. Sixty-four percent of respondents disagreed that elected officials care what people like them think, compared with just 32 percent who agreed. In most countries polled, those who did not believe elected officials care about the opinions of ordinary people were also unhappy with how democracy was performing in their countries.
  
  
• Trust Gap Widening Between Elites and Mass Public. Compared with elites, who tend to have more favorable views of government and markets, the mass public is much more skeptical that government and other institutions are performing effectively. The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer conducted in the United States, Western Europe, Brazil, China, Japan, and South Korea, found that just 52 percent of the mass public surveyed trusted business and only 45 percent trusted government, compared with 69 percent and 55 percent of elites, respectively. A series of polls by Edelman from 2012 to 2021 revealed that the gap in trust between the elite and everyone else had more than tripled with respect to key institutions, including nongovernmental organizations, business, government, and the media.

Publics in every region have become more concerned about the future and less optimistic, even as their personal incomes have risen. People’s average standard of living around the world has steadily improved during the past half century, with global per capita GDP growing in constant dollars from $3,700 in 1960 to nearly $11,000
in 2018.

• In some countries, the share of the population expecting their children’s future financial situation to be worse than that of their parents has risen sharply—rising 35 percent in Brazil and 25 percent in Tunisia between 2013 and 2018, for example. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pew Research Center found in 2018 that a median of just 34 percent of respondents in 18 countries with advanced economies expected the children of that country to be better off than their parents when they become adults. Among nine emerging economies, the figure was 42 percent.
  
  
• The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer found that only small percentages of people in several advanced economies thought they would be better off in five years, including Japan (15 percent), France (19 percent), Germany (23 percent), and the United Kingdom
  (27 percent).

This distrust in the system and worries for the future reflect growing public concern about corruption, globalization, eroding social values, immigration, and the pace of innovation, according to Edelman Trust Management’s analysis of its survey results during the past 20 years.

Public opinion data indicates that majorities across Sub-Saharan Africa (55 percent), the Middle East and North Africa (65 percent), and Latin America (53 percent) believe that corruption is increasing in their region. According to a 2019 report by Transparency International, two-thirds of countries scored below average in the level of perceived corruption. Countries with the highest levels of public concern about corruption also have the highest levels of political power concentrated among the wealthy elite. Globally, according to a number of international governance experts, perceptions of corruption are now one of the most dominant factors driving political change.

(Graphic 1: PERCEPTIONS OF CORRUPTION DRIVING PUBLIC OUTCRY- Click image to enlarge)

This discontent has led to a surge in public activism in the past decade, in every region and across all types of governments, with varying degrees of impact. As one scholar has noted, “There is not a political model that seems to be doing well or that is inoculated from the kind of uprisings the world is witnessing.” The head of Asia research at risk analysis and strategic forecasting firm Varisk Maplecroft predicted in January 2020, before the widespread impact of COVID-19, that 80 percent of the 125 countries the firm analyzes would experience an upsurge in unrest in the next two years. People have used some very visible tactics, including mass protests and nationwide boycotts, as well as lower profile methods, such as advocacy campaigns, social media operations, and the mobilization of key influencers, to try to exert pressure on their governments, institutions, and the business sector.

 

Mass Protests

In 2019, there was a spike in protests worldwide targeting national-level political leadership, but this rise in public demonstrations is part of a decade-long trend. A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that mass protests increased annually by an average of 11.5 percent between 2009 and 2019, with the rate of growth highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2019 alone, antigovernment protests took place in 114 countries and territories, and some of these protests—including marches and large-scale public demonstrations as well as sporadic violence—resulted in notable change, including the removal of political leaders (Algeria, Bolivia, Iraq, and Sudan) or policy adjustments (Chile and Hong Kong). In 2019 in Hong Kong, months of large street protests initially resulted in the withdrawal of legislation that restricted some freedoms for Hong Kong citizens, but in response, Beijing imposed a new national security law in 2020, that targets activities perceived as fostering political independence. In Chile, government leaders adopted changes in response to protesters’ demands, and in Ecuador elected leaders granted concessions to protesters participating in mass demonstrations. In contrast, increasing protests across Russia in support of opposition leader Aleksey Navalnyy have been met with arrests and an extended sentence for Navalnyy.

Boycotts, Civil Disobedience, and Other Public Pressure Campaigns

Civil resistance activities—unarmed civilians’ use of nonviolent tactics to withhold consent—have grown steadily during the past five decades, putting pressure on government leaders and corporations alike.

• Targeting Governments. The 2019-20 transportation strike in France—the longest in the country’s history—principally over President Emmanuel Macron’s effort to overhaul the country’s pension system led to the government’s reversal of planned changes to national pension policy.
  
  
• Targeting Corporations. Both consumers and employees are pressing private corporations and organizations to adjust behaviors and policies to align more closely with their interests, needs, and values. Employees are increasingly engaging in walkouts and boycotts when their companies do not conform to values that they deem important, according to Edelman Trust Management, which has studied trust levels during the past 20 years. In response to growing requests from customers, international corporations, including energy companies and investment firms, are building environmental sustainability into their production and investment decisions. Consumer demands often effect change much faster than government regulations.

Social Media Engagement

During the past two decades, social media engagement and online campaigns have become an increasingly critical component of public activism, spreading information quickly and allowing groups to organize virtually without alerting authorities. At the same time, individuals, groups, and governments have manipulated online content to spread disinformation, undermine groups and causes, and at times, provoke public action and conflict.

• Connection and Communication. During the 2011 Arab Awakening, large numbers of people harnessed social media networks to organize participation within countries and generate attention globally. Social media played a significant role in communicating developments to influential people outside and across the region, and increasing the visibility and potency of the movement.
  
  
• Disinformation. According to a report by Oxford University, disinformation campaigns occurred in 70 countries in 2019, up 250 percent in two years. Disinformation is an efficient tool for individuals and organizations; true stories take about six times longer than false stories to reach 1,500 people, according to a recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. False news stories are about 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true stories.
  
  
• Divisive Rhetoric. Governments and affiliated organizations increasingly are using social media to try to shape popular opinion and influence public behavior at home and abroad. The pro-Kremlin Internet Research Agency, for example, conducts operations online, including spreading falsehoods about the coronavirus, to induce distrust in democratic institutions and undermine the European Union. The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar found that some Burmese authorities disseminated hate speech toward the Rohingya population through Facebook and other media platforms in 2017, creating a climate in which extremist views gained traction.

Lower Profile Efforts

In addition to the highly visible protests, pressure campaigns, and social media engagement, groups and individuals have employed behind-the-scenes tools to push for political outcomes, including working with issue-based advocacy organizations or through key policy influencers. Efforts to shape policy outcomes through persuasion of government officials from countries at every stage of development constitute an increasingly lucrative business.

• Advocacy. Often led by nongovernmental organizations, advocacy efforts depend heavily on public support and have influenced government policies on issues ranging from arms sales and nuclear nonproliferation to single-country policies and development assistance. Strong public backing can be instrumental in the likelihood of an advocacy campaign’s success. One recent study of advocacy success in a sample of European markets found that
  the effectiveness of advocacy operations in achieving intended policy outcomes increases proportionately with the strength of public support for that objective. Another study of the relationship between lobbying efforts and government responsiveness across 13 policy areas in Germany found that principle-based “cause groups,” strongly backed by public opinion, increased government responsiveness through the provision of campaign contributions, electoral support, and information to governments.
  
  
• Key Influencers. Outside the governing structure, influencers, such as business elites, leaders of issue-based nonprofit organizations, and prominent social media personalities, also affect policy by facilitating connections between the public and government leaders. By channeling their sentiments through these influencers, groups and private individuals can maximize the chances of substantive policy change.

Changing economic and social conditions are providing populations in every region the resources, time, and tools to channel their needs and interests into action and to engage officials and other elites with greater intensity, frequency, and effectiveness. Populations in the most developed countries are already well positioned to do this, and populations in developing countries are likely to become increasingly equipped to express their interests and needs as material conditions improve.

Increasing Prosperity

Greater prosperity, especially in developing countries, is likely to increase the intensity of future public activism, as people have greater free time, higher expectations, and better access to the tools for participation. The reduction in people’s preoccupation with immediate financial concerns facilitates a wider scope of awareness and ambition beyond immediate needs. Moreover, as people become wealthier in developing countries, they often express rising economic and social expectations in terms of material benefits, such as better healthcare, housing, or education, which governments are often not in a position to provide expeditiously.

• From 1990 to 2017, the percentage of people living on less than $1.90 per day dropped from 36 to 9.2 percent of the world’s population. These gains were not evenly distributed across all regions; the biggest change occurred in East Asia and the Pacific, whereas the change in Sub-Saharan Africa was smaller. If economic growth patterns were to match historical trends, poverty would fall to about 5 percent by 2030, but disparities are likely to grow. The global pandemic is likely to make poverty reduction more difficult to attain in the next 3 to 5 years, and under most projections, Sub-Saharan Africa is still likely to contain a quarter of the world’s population in extreme poverty in 2030.
  
  
• In 2018, for the first time in history, more than 50 percent of the world’s population reached the middle class, and by 2030, estimates suggest that the middle class could exceed 63 percent. The vast majority of the increase in the middle-class population has come from Asia in the past decade, principally China and India, but Sub-Saharan Africa is poised to make additional gains. Consumer spending in the region, which is driven primarily by the middle class, was an estimated $1.3 trillion in 2010 and is likely to double by 2030, according to the Africa Development Bank Group (AfDB). The AfDB forecasts that the share of Sub-Saharan Africans qualifying as middle class will grow from today’s 13 percent to 42 percent by 2060.
  
  
• As a result of these factors, publics in most Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia countries are likely to be more engaged in the next decade. China’s middle class has grown rapidly from 3.1 percent of the population in 2000 to 50.8 percent in 2018. As a result, nearly 670 million people have greater resources to make demands on their government.
  
  

(Graphic 2: GLOBAL PROSPERITY PORTENDS MORE INTENSE PUBLIC VOICE - Click image to enlarge)

Rising Education Levels

In all regions and for both genders, increasing access to education is providing people greater awareness of the domestic and international dynamics shaping their lives as well as an increasing understanding of the levers for change at their disposal. During the past two centuries, the total population of people over age 15 with some formal education has quadrupled, from 20 percent in 1820 to 80 percent today, and by 2050, the proportion of people receiving no formal education is likely to drop to almost zero. East Asia, Europe, and North America have already attained high levels of education and are expected to maintain those levels in coming years whereas less-developed regions are poised to experience continued growth.

• From 2020 to 2040, the percentage of the population projected to complete secondary-level education in Sub-Saharan Africa will increase from 44 percent to 57 percent, according to UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization data, and from 66 percent to 79 percent in South Asia. Overall, the least developed countries are projected to experience an increase from 43 percent to 56 percent.

Expanding Communication Technology Capabilities

Social media and the inexpensive, near-instantaneous flow of information have grown exponentially, giving real-time awareness of events and the tools and techniques to improve people’s ability to organize. Social media also has created information silos and facilitated the spread of disinformation, which has further undermined trust and heightened social tensions. Within countries, governments have tried to harness new technologies to restrict movement and free expression, but technology also provides visibility into government policies and the provision of services, and globally, increased access to the Internet offers knowledge of transnational dynamics and awareness of similar efforts in other countries. This greater global connectivity is likely to magnify collective action, extending the trend of increasing public confrontation with traditional hierarchies and devaluation of conventional sources of authority, including widely trusted authorities that had served as sources of societal cohesion. Social media and other digital communication tools give organizers the ability to generate and focus public attention on particular issues and causes. Individuals can bypass the publishing industry and other traditional intermediaries and communicate directly to the broader public to achieve a range of results, from informing and catalyzing action to misleading and manipulating.

• In just the past five years, the number of people using the Internet has grown by 36 percent, an equivalent of 1.24 billion new users. Global social media users increased to 4.2 billion in 2021, an 82 percent gain in five years and equivalent to 53 percent of the world’s population.
  
  
• Projecting forward, global mobile Internet penetration is forecast to reach 61 percent of all populations by 2025 and 90 percent by 2030, up from 49 percent in 2019. Penetration in Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to climb from nearly 26 percent in 2019 to 39 percent by 2025. One estimate suggests that subscriptions to mobile broadband in Sub-Saharan Africa will increase by an additional 167 million subscribers by 2025, and the number of mobile Internet users will grow from 239 million in 2018 to 483 million in 2025. Comparatively, industry forecasters expect a 5.5 percent increase in mobile Internet users through 2025 in the Asia-Pacific region, a 4 percent increase in Latin America, and a 0.5 percent increase in Europe. These projected differences reflect Africa’s comparatively low saturation rates and large youth population.
  
  

(Graphic 3: COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY A CATALYST FOR PUBLIC VOICE - Click image to enlarge)

Intensifying Urbanization

Urbanization is transforming communities globally, fostering more shared experiences while facilitating greater collaboration. According to 2018 UN data, the percentage of people living in urban areas is likely to surge from 56 percent in 2020 to 65 percent by 2040, totaling an estimated 5.94 billion people. The number of megacities—with populations exceeding 10 million people—is projected to climb from 33 million in 2018 to 43 million in 2030. In Nigeria, for example, Lagos had a population of 7.3 million in 2000 and is expected to have 24.4 million by 2035. Given these trends in urbanization, the scale of the challenges endemic to cities, and the history of public movements originating in high-density population areas, the number of people agitating for policy change is likely to increase.

As public activism expands, governments will be compelled to respond to maintain stability—either by accommodating public demands or by taking harsher, repressive actions—but may be unsuccessful because tactical measures often do not address the underlying grievances.

Accommodation

During the past decade, many government responses to greater public activism have sought to remove the proximate trigger for public demands. This response has often been the removal of a new law or tax or the ouster of an unpopular leader. These measures have satisfied publics temporarily but rarely addressed broader, systemic concerns, as evidenced by the persistence in high levels of public action.

• After protests began in 2018, the Government of Haiti reversed its fuel tax increase, and in 2019, the Government of Lebanon recalled its planned tax on WhatsApp calls. Neither country has made meaningful strides toward addressing economic inequality and corruption, however, which are the core underlying grievances.

Repressive Measures

Many governments have responded to protests by trying to suppress public activism, including by jailing leaders, deploying security services, and shutting down the Internet.

• In October 2019, Chile’s military and police crackdown on protesters left dozens dead and thousands injured. Iraqi security forces killed approximately 700 protesters—organizing in opposition to perceived corruption, unemployment, and a lack of public services—between October 2019 and February 2021. Local, state, and national officials in India have reacted to protesters by cutting off access to the Internet more than any country in the world—more than 400 instances in the past four years.
  
  
• Even repressive regimes appear to be limited by evolving social norms, and violent reprisals have been the exception rather than standard practice. Despite the threat that prodemocracy movements in Hong Kong pose to the Chinese regime’s efforts to project political uniformity, China’s officials have shown some restraint in their treatment of protesters. Changing global norms could increasingly constrain government responses to widespread discontent or persuade governments to change tactics to less overt forms
  of repression.

Increasing public activism can be an indication of democratic health for the future and offer the prospect of more accountable leadership, but this dynamic also comes with risks, including more factionalized government, reduced policy coherence, and lack of long-term strategic planning. When public demand is consistent and overwhelming, it can restrict the range of available policy options. In other cases where public opinion is more differentiated, policy elites may struggle to manage competing demands, and decisionmaking may become paralyzed.

Increased Responsiveness

Public engagement with political leadership can improve responsiveness to public needs and increase general accountability. For example, heightened public pressure in Chile in 2020, starting with protests over subway fare hikes, generated some tangible results, ranging from increases in the monthly allocation of retirement pensions to promises to revise the old constitution, which was drafted during Chile’s military dictatorship. The 2019-20 transportation strike in France over rising fuel prices resulted in President Macron’s commitment to overhaul the country’s pension system. Although this dynamic is a longstanding feature of French politics—public protests followed by government concessions—it depicts a pattern of the public demanding government responsiveness that is being replicated in other places.

Reduced Policy Coherence

Increasing public agitation on competing sides can further polarize political processes and undermine elected officials’ efforts to reconcile divergent policy views and reach compromise solutions to national challenges. This can result in fluctuating, contradictory, and ineffective policies.

• During the past decade in Argentina, public protests and obstructionist opposition parties have further polarized politics and limited the ability of successive governments to address longstanding challenges such as widespread poverty and a growing national debt. Policies have oscillated between fiscal austerity to reduce the debt levels and generous social expenditures—exacerbating the fiscal challenges.
  
  
• Occasionally incoming leaders respond to niche pressures or depart from orthodox policies that are the result of longstanding commitments and negotiated tradeoffs. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to office in 2014 as a trade liberalizer under the slogan “Minimum government, maximum governance.” However, in response to political pressures and to protect certain domestic industries, including the agricultural sector, he raised import duties on more than 40 goods in the 2018-19 budget and levied export taxes on more than 400 textile items in just two months in 2018. Policies designed to satisfy narrow constituencies risk sacrificing long-accepted strategic logic and jettisoning carefully crafted international agreements.

SCENARIOS FOR 2040

SCENARIO 1: RENAISSANCE OF DEMOCRACIES

In 2040, the world is in the midst of a resurgence of open democracies led by the United States and its allies. Rapid technological advancements fostered by public-private partnerships in the United States and other democratic societies are transforming the global economy, raising incomes, and improving the quality of life for millions around the globe. The rising tide of economic growth and technological achievement enables responses to global challenges, eases societal divisions, and renews public trust in democratic institutions. In contrast, years of increasing societal controls and monitoring in China and Russia have stifled innovation as leading scientists and entrepreneurs have sought asylum in the United States and Europe.

HOW WE GOT THERE

The successful development and worldwide distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine in 2020-21 focused global attention on the importance of scientific research, innovation, and technological development to address emerging global challenges. Networks of research institutes, governmental agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and private corporations operating in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries ramped up information-sharing and developed coordinated approaches for research and development focused on artificial intelligence, biotech, and other technologies critical to revitalizing economies and addressing societal needs. During the succeeding 10 years, these efforts produced a series of groundbreaking advances, enhancing productivity and leading to an economic boom. Technological advances and economic growth combined to improve government capacity, enabling democratic governments to deliver services and provide security more effectively.

With greater resources and improving services, these democracies launched initiatives to crack down on corruption, increase transparency, and improve accountability worldwide, boosting public trust. These efforts helped to reverse years of social fragmentation and to restore a sense of civic nationalism. The combination of rapid innovation, a stronger economy, and greater societal cohesion enabled steady progress on climate and other challenges. Democratic societies became more resilient to disinformation because of greater public awareness and education initiatives and new technologies that quickly identify and debunk erroneous information. This environment restored a culture of vigorous but civil debate over values, goals, and policies.

In contrast to the culture of collaboration prevailing in open societies, China and Russia failed to cultivate the high-tech talent, investment, and environment necessary to sustain continuous innovation. For China, the complete crackdown on Hong Kong in 2022 launched a decade of even greater repression, limiting any semblance of free expression or action. While they remained strategic military powers, both China and Russia were bogged down by domestic strains. China’s aging population, high public and private debt, and inefficient state-directed economic model blocked the country’s transition to a consumer economy, and by 2029 China was stuck in the middle-income trap and had alienated populations in developing countries. Russia declined because of a stagnating workforce, overreliance on energy exports, and post-Putin elite infighting.

By the mid-2030s, the United States and its allies in Europe and Asia were the established global leaders in several technologies, including AI, robotics, the Internet of Things, biotech, energy storage, and additive manufacturing. Democracies joined forces to set international standards to limit the negative consequences of technologies, including disinformation that had previously been so divisive in open societies. Multilateral cooperation spilled overinto other areas, including cyber security, climate change mitigation, and rules for managing the seabed, the Arctic, and space.

Technological success fostered a widely perceived view among emerging and developing countries that democracies were more adaptable and resilient and better able to cope with growing global challenges. Years of unfulfilled Chinese promises also pushed some of the most populous countries, including Brazil, Indonesia, India, and Nigeria, to fully embrace transparent democracy. The rapid diffusion of advanced technologies to developing economies enabled faster than expected improvements in education and job skills, building on remote learning platforms developed during the pandemic. With China’s rise no longer seen as inevitable, leading states and investors turned to more rapidly growing economies with robust private sectors and innovation systems.

Autocratic regimes tried but failed to push back against the growing strength of democratic allies. Russia threatened to intervene on behalf of ethnic Russian minorities in several of the non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) post-Soviet states, a move widely seen as a desperate last attempt by Moscow to divert attention from its domestic problems. China took threatening steps in the South China Sea. Both invested in asymmetric weapons systems and disinformation technologies to counter US advantages while avoiding the costs of direct violence.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
	Open, democratic systems proved better able to foster scientific research and technological innovation, catalyzing an economic boom. Strong economic growth, in turn, enabled democracies to meet many domestic needs, address global challenges, and counter rivals.
	The combination of better service provision and anticorruption efforts helped restore public trust in institutions and eventually mended many fractured societies. Strong differences in public preferences and beliefs remained but these were worked out democratically.
	US leadership proved central to multilateral coordination and focus on global challenges, building on established alliances and international institutions. A revival in the EU and United Kingdom, spurred on by technological innovation and economic growth, was key to broader success.
	Over time, the combination of severe repression, stalled economic growth, and mounting demographic pressures undermined established authoritarian regimes in China and Russia, making them less predictable and more aggressive in their neighborhoods.

DEEPER LOOKS

The Future of the Battlefield

During the next two decades, military conflict most likely will be driven by the same factors that have historically prompted wars—ranging from resource protection, economic disparities, and ideological differences to the pursuit of power and influence—but the ways in which war is waged will change as new technologies, applications, and doctrines emerge and as additional actors gain access to these capabilities. The combination of improved sensors, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) with hypersonics and other advanced technologies will produce more accurate, better connected, faster, longer range, and more destructive weapons, primarily available to the most advanced militaries but some within reach of smaller state and non-state actors. The proliferation and diffusion of these systems over time will make more assets vulnerable, heighten the risk of escalation, and make combat potentially more deadly, though not necessarily more decisive.

By 2040, a range of potentially revolutionary technologies and novel uses could change the character of how war is waged. We consider these potential changes across three distinct aspects of warfare: hardware (the weapons systems and new technologies themselves), software (the doctrine, training, and ways these new technologies are used), and users (the states or non-state actors employing these weapons and doctrines). For the future of warfare, the applications and combinations of new technologies are as important as the technologies themselves.

• For example, in 1919 it would not have been hard to predict that aircraft, aircraft carriers, tanks, and submarines—all of which were available in World War I—would be used in the next great war. The different ways they would be employed by the various belligerents—each with their own military experiences, perceptions, and traditions—and the technologies which would prevail over others were the real questions, and the ones most difficult to forecast. The same is true today.

During the next two decades, new and emerging technologies could change and potentially revolutionize the battlefield in four broad areas—connectivity, lethality, autonomy, and sustainability.

• Connectivity: the ways in which combatants detect and locate their adversaries, communicate with each other, and direct operations;
  
  
• Lethality: the damage that new weapons and weapon systems can inflict on battlefields;
  
  
• Autonomy: the ways in which robotics and AI can change who (or what) fights and makes decisions;
  
  
• Sustainability: the ways that militaries supply and support their deployed forces.

Connectivity

The future of warfare is likely to focus less on firepower and more on the power of information and the way it connects a military’s forces through the concepts of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). More than ever, the advantage will lie with whichever side can collect the most vital information, accurately and quickly analyze it, and then rapidly and securely disseminate the information and associated instructions to forces. 

The combination of more inexpensive sensors and big data analytics points to a potential revolution in real-time detection and processing of information by 2040. Many of the world's militaries recognize this potential and are already working to capitalize on the power of information to amplify their warfighting strategies and capabilities. They are exploring how emerging technologies, including but not limited to AI, could usher in an era of persistent surveillance and improve their decisionmaking.

• In the contest between those looking to hide their activities—whether at the tactical, operational, or strategic-levels of warfare—and those seeking to identify and track them, the balance by 2040 may shift to the "seekers," as increasingly advanced and accessible technologies provide them with continuous global surveillance capabilities.
  
  
• In the undersea domain, for example, a combination of more numerous, improved, and relatively inexpensive sensors with advances in commercially available processing power could make submarines—considered the world's first stealth technology—more vulnerable to detection.

This information edge and the technologies that enable it are also likely to become important targets for adversaries in future conflicts. The more connectivity is seen as a decisive advantage for one side, the more the other will seek to disrupt, degrade, and disable the highly connected, information-dependent systems.

 

(Graphic 2: Connectivity Warfare: GPS spoofing misdirects platforms - Click image to enlarge)

Lethality

Once an adversary’s forces are located by diverse surveillance technologies, increasingly advanced weapons can be used to target them. One of the most significant, ongoing trends in weaponry is the growing combination of high speed, long-range, enhanced destruction potential, and pinpoint accuracy. By 2040, accuracy will be further enhanced by the integration of satellite-provided imagery and positioning, timing, and navigation information in most weapons systems. Such advances will be likely to improve systems capable of striking across continents as well as more tactical weapons, such as guided rockets, artillery shells, and mortar rounds.

• The increasing number and accuracy of such systems by 2040, particularly ballistic and cruise missile systems, will pose a significant threat to headquarters, communications facilities, airfields, logistics infrastructure, and other critical targets.
  
  
• Long-range precision strike weapons inventories are likely to include increasing numbers of hypersonic systems that can strike targets at great distances with unprecedented maneuverability and speed. These systems will present a daunting challenge for those trying to develop countermeasures that can detect, track, and intercept such fast-moving and maneuvering weapons.

Although as yet unproven in combat, directed energy weapons—including lasers and high-power microwaves—may be features of the battlefields of 2040. Whereas long-range precision strike weapons, like hypersonics, hold the potential to revolutionize offense, directed energy weapons could revolutionize defense by, for example, offering an effective means to counter the high-speed and maneuverability of hypersonic weapons. If the challenges of deploying such weapons systems, including energy consumption and replenishment, can be overcome, the cost per shot—delivered at the speed of light—of energy weapons could fall to nearly zero while the rate of fire could theoretically exceed any mechanical system.

• However, even if these weapons are fielded in appreciable numbers during the next 20 years and work as designed, they will still possess inherent limitations. For example, lasers are limited to line-of-sight and may be degraded or defeated by atmospheric obscurants, reflective surfaces, or specialized materials, while high-power microwaves could be defeated by hardening key components of potential targets against their effects.
  
  

 

(Graphic 3: Hypersonic glide vehicle trajectory vs. a ballistic trajectory - Click image to enlarge)

Autonomy

Autonomous systems and AI are likely to play key roles in the future of warfare because of their widespread applicability to many different functions. Autonomous systems are not new kinds of weapons but are enabling technologies, allowing existing platforms to operate with decreasing levels of human interaction, for extended periods, and in increasingly deadly environments.

• Unmanned Vehicles. UAVs are already accepted—even assumed—warfighting tools on battlefields worldwide. The next two decades are likely to see greater development and deployment of a host of other unmanned vehicles, ranging from ground vehicles to sea-based surface and subsurface platforms. Such vehicles are ideal for performing mundane, repetitive activities—such as resupply missions for manned platforms—as well as for performing hazardous missions like reconnoitering enemy bunkers and strongpoints, laying or clearing land- and sea-based mines, or searching for submarines.
  
  
• Lethal Autonomous Weapons. As autonomous technology progresses, some countries may not be concerned about having humans in the loop of firing decisions. As a result, it is possible that by 2040—and despite the associated ethical and legal challenges to their use—truly autonomous, lethal weapons could roam the battlefield and make their own targeting and engagement decisions.
  
  
• Swarming. Unmanned systems of all types are rapidly becoming more numerous, more capable, and cheaper. Attacks by small swarms of UAVs have already been observed—for example, as US Special Forces troops fought to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIS in the fall of 2016, they were attacked by at least a dozen armed UAVs dropping grenades and improvised explosives. However, the power of swarming is more than just numbers—swarms of unmanned vehicles could communicate with each other and adjust their tactics and targets as circumstances change.

The development and evolving capabilities of these autonomous systems are closely linked to advances in AI. AI is already used to enhance the performance of a variety of existing weapon systems, such as target recognition in precision warheads, and can be used in support of humans in human-machine teaming, including decisionmaking tools, or as a decisionmaking engine itself. By 2040, military decisionmaking derived from AI is likely to incorporate available space-based data in real-time support to operations.

• China, for example, is actively pursuing the use of AI for a wide range of applications, including for information and data analysis; for war-gaming, simulations, and training; and for command decisionmaking. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in 2017 that the nation that leads in development of AI would “become ruler of the world.”
  
  
• Nevertheless, AI faces technological hurdles and shortcomings that it must overcome to meet its full potential on the battlefield. AI and the machine learning algorithms that underpin it excel at well-bounded tasks but get things wrong if faced with confusing or unexpected input. For example, it is possible to imagine a scenario in which lethal autonomous weapons driven by AI become overwhelmed by inputs in the dynamic and often chaotic environment of combat and either shut down, wander off, or even begin targeting friendly forces.
  
  

Sustainability

Finally, other new technologies, specifically robotics, additive manufacturing, biotechnology, and energy technologies are likely to greatly improve military logistics and sustainment.

• Unmanned Vehicles could be used for logistical support, making relatively mundane but often dangerous supply runs between rear area bases and forces deployed in the field.
  
  
• Additive manufacturing capabilities—such as 3-D printing with new materials including advanced metals or ceramics—have the potential to revolutionize military logistics by producing supplies, parts, and perhaps equipment cheaply, quickly, and where they are needed.
  
  
• Biotechnologies could improve the ability of individual soldiers to fight and survive on the battlefield. Soldiers might use medical devices on or inside their bodies to monitor their fitness status and, as the field progresses, use devices to diagnose health issues or injuries and inject medications—even while in combat.
  
  
• New energy technologies—such as small nuclear reactors, or high-density electrical power storage—could have an equally transformative effect on logistics and weapon systems by reducing the amount of fuel necessary to operate forward deployed facilities and equipment, or by serving as the power source for future directed energy weapons.
  
  

The May 2020 test of a laser weapon system installed aboard the USS Portland (LPD 27). The system successfully disabled a UAV used as a target, according to the US Navy.

The ways in which new weapons and technologies are employed on the battlefield will be just as important as the technologies themselves, particularly in determining whether military breakthroughs are truly revolutionary or merely advanced versions of today’s military art. Just as new and untried doctrinal concepts were debated before the First and Second World Wars, militaries worldwide are working to develop the doctrine (the “software”) for how these new tools of war will be employed—some in novel ways but others reflecting more of an evolution from today’s tactics and strategies. There are at least four discrete but not mutually exclusive visions for how actors might employ new weapons and techniques in coming years:

Fast Offense

As a devastating opening salvo, hypersonic weapons, perhaps in combination with more numerous, advanced conventional missiles, could strike an opponent's military and civilian infrastructure near simultaneously before the defenders could mount any kind of response. Because of the range and accuracy of such weapons, the attacker most likely would not have to extensively position forces beforehand, limiting indicators and warning for the opponent.

Zone Defense

While some new technologies appear to favor offense or expeditionary warfare, certain other new technologies appear to provide more help for defense, particularly for small states focused on securing their homeland. For example, unmanned systems today generally require large and expensive airframes to accommodate the engines and fuel tanks necessary to operate far from their home base or loiter for extended periods over foreign or hostile territory. However, if the goal is to maintain situational awareness and defend the airspace, maritime claims, or home territory of a nation, then large numbers of small and cheap unmanned systems may be just as effective.

Distributed Warfare

The proliferation of high-speed and highly accurate, lethal weapons will call into question the survivability of expensive, high-value, and difficult to quickly replace platforms and weapons systems. One potential mitigation strategy could be the further development and implementation of distributed forces and operations.

• The combination of precise geolocation, high-fidelity battlefield awareness, instant communications, and standoff weapons means that militaries by 2040 may no longer need to mass forces in time and space to the extent historically or traditionally deemed necessary to achieve their objectives.
  
  
• However, there is a risk that if any of the critical enablers—particularly communications—required to facilitate distributed warfare are damaged, disrupted, or destroyed by hostile action, then a military’s overall warfighting system could devolve from an interlinked, cohesive network into a disconnected and broken mosaic incapable of conducting effective combat operations.
  
  

Hybrid and Non-Kinetic Warfare

States are likely to increasingly compete in the “gray zone” using among other things non-official or plausibly deniable proxies, including private military companies (PMCs). Although the use of proxies is not an entirely new phenomenon—much of the Cold War-era competition between the United States and the Soviet Union involved proxy conflicts, deniable forces, and disinformation campaigns—the increasingly hyper-connected environment is changing some of the tools and techniques.

• In addition to actual combat operations undertaken by proxy or otherwise deniable forces, this type of conflict will include a spectrum of non-kinetic actions that could be undertaken either independently or in support of a conventional military component, such as attacks on undersea fiber optic cables, cyber operations, GPS jamming and spoofing, and information operations.

Ultimately, the choice of new technologies and the development of warfighting concepts are likely to depend on the unique threat perceptions, strengths, and vulnerabilities of individual actors. Potential actors range from great and regional powers to non-state actors, such as PMCs and insurgent and terrorist groups. National and organizational cultures as well as internal dynamics probably will play a role in how different actors adopt and employ new technologies. The extent to which these actors encourage initiative and innovation or are otherwise open to change is likely to determine their success mastering the full potential of new technologies and doctrines.

Some advanced or emerging technologies—such as hypersonics—may remain within the purview of great powers and wealthier state actors, but relatively low cost and more widely available automated systems and cyber tools could be exploited by lesser powers and non-state actors to achieve high impact and even strategic-level effects. Lesser or rising powers may be more innovative because they have less to lose by taking chances, are less burdened by legacy systems, and can sometimes leapfrog ahead by skipping generations of development or investing in new and untested military or commercial technologies.

• Iran in 2019 demonstrated the ability to creatively weave together different technologies and techniques when it conducted a coordinated, long-range strike on oil production facilities in Saudi Arabia using a combination of armed UAVs and cruise missiles—an attack that briefly shut down more than 5 percent of global oil production and produced a spike in oil prices.
  
  
• PMCs, particularly those operating at the behest of one of the great powers and with potential access to the best technologies, also are likely to incorporate advanced weapons and surveillance equipment into their operations. Unfettered by the bureaucracies, doctrines, and traditions of state militaries, it is possible that PMCs might lead the way in identifying new and innovative ways to apply increasingly advanced technologies on the battlefield.
  
  
• Insurgent and terrorist groups may try to make further use of advanced technologies as they become increasingly cheap and easy to acquire. Already, it is easy for would-be terrorists to construct or purchase UAVs and adapt them to carry a few pounds of explosives.

Novel war-fighting technologies have emerged throughout history, often to great acclaim, but only to have limited impact on the battlefield, while others—such as gunpowder—have gone on to have profound effects. Identifying precisely which and to what extent new technologies and techniques will have the most impact on the future character of warfare is notoriously difficult. Nevertheless, the advanced capabilities that are already making appearances on the battlefield, or are on the horizon, point to several trends and potential implications for war, and peace, in 2040.

Increasingly available advanced technologies

Many of the advanced systems that are likely to be developed and deployed during the next 20 years represent proliferation threats. At the ongoing pace of technological change and diffusion, many militarily relevant technologies are likely to become more available and widespread for both states and non-state actors.

• Space technology and services, for example, are inherently dual-use, meaning that advanced, space-based services—such as high-resolution imagery—will be available for military applications as well as civil government and commercial use.
  
  
• The proliferation and relatively low cost of technology has already created a particularly low barrier to conflict in cyberspace, enabling small countries or groups to achieve strategic effect without expensive weapons systems and personnel. The application of low-cost cyberspace capabilities also could provide an advantage against technology-dependent nation or organization.
  
  
• Given the spread of technology and central role that commercial industry plays in the development of new applications and systems, it is possible to imagine a convergence of dynamics in which a new kind of PMC emerges that provides cutting edge military capabilities—such as robotic weapons and platforms operated by mercenaries—for a fee. This could enable lesser military powers to avoid the cost of developing a modern military and training skilled personnel.

Perceived sanctuaries less safe

Long-range precision strike capabilities mean that areas once thought to be relatively safe from conventional attack because of distance will be increasingly vulnerable, including airfields, assembly areas, and command and control centers. Countries may also face concerted cyber attacks, unbound by geography, against critical infrastructure to disrupt troop movements, cause chaos among the civilian population, and weaken public resolve for military action.

Heightened risk of miscalculation and escalation

The increasing availability of advanced weapons systems and growing employment of hybrid and non-kinetic warfare are likely to further challenge long-held understandings of inter-state deterrence, possibly risking unintended escalation into direct inter-state conflict.

• If hypersonic and other advanced, precision-strike weapons prove to be as effective and hard to defend against as conventional wisdom suggests, these systems could be ideal first-strike weapons. If tensions are high, leaders might feel pressured to strike first out of fear of losing their advanced arsenals of hypersonics and other weapons to an opponent's first strike.
  
  
• Increased gray zone activities, even if intended to avoid full-scale military confrontations, introduce another risk variable, particularly as capabilities grow over time. In a confrontation, neither side is likely to be completely sure how the other will react when, for example, state-backed private military contractors are killed in battles or cyber attacks disable critical infrastructure or disrupt an election. In essence, the employment of such methods assumes that the other side will not seek to escalate.

More deadly, though not necessarily decisive

Future conflicts involving great or medium powers could be extraordinarily violent from the outset, yet also protracted and inconclusive. For centuries, adversaries have started wars thinking they had some edge that would enable them to win quickly and decisively. Sometimes they have been correct, but on other occasions leaders who thought they had war-winning technologies or military strategies turned out to be wrong. With the wide variety of new-but-untried warfighting technologies and concepts, it is possible such dynamics will continue to repeat themselves during the next 20 years.

• For historical comparison, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 crippled the US Navy’s Pacific Ocean battleship fleet and killed more than 2,400 Americans. In the future, advanced and increasingly lethal weapons could achieve similarly impactful effects and inflict comparable casualties on a nation’s armed forces in the opening minutes of a conflict.
  
  
• The swiftness and scale of such destruction could lead any country that suffers similar losses in a future conflict to concede or otherwise withdraw from combat because of loss of military capability and confidence, shock over casualties, or a combination that undermine its will to fight. However, it is possible that such apparently decisive losses galvanize a nation to carry on the fight, regardless of cost in blood and treasure, as happened with the United States after Pearl Harbor. Such a scenario might also compel a nation to employ new weapons technologies or novel approaches to warfare that it might not otherwise have considered to try to defeat its opponent.

DEEPER LOOKS

The Future of Migration

International migration probably will increase during the next decades because migration drivers, including economic pressures, changing age structures, population growth, rapid urbanization, and environmental stress, are likely to persist and intensify. Destination countries that can manage the social and political tension caused by immigration probably will reap economic benefits that outweigh the fiscal costs of new migrants. Origin countries are likely to experience mixed results from more emigration, including critical skill gaps, decreases in unemployment, and improving education levels.

The total number of international migrants worldwide probably will increase during the next decades as economic factors continue to attract migrants to wealthier countries while poor conditions and crisis spur people to leave their home countries. The exact trajectory of the expected increase in the number of international migrants is likely to depend on how these push and pull factors come together, as well as other countervailing forces. Most migrants are likely to continue to leave their homes voluntarily to pursue socioeconomic opportunities. In 2019, about two-thirds of the world’s migrants were voluntary workers, and only 11 percent were refugees fleeing conflict or instability.

• At least 34 developing countries—including Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, and the Philippines—are likely to see emigration rates increase during the next decade, because rising incomes will provide more people with the means to seek better lives abroad.
• The United States and the other 36 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries—which currently host more than half the world’s international migrants—probably will remain preferred destinations because of their high quality of life, economic opportunities, and large foreign-born populations that can ease the social and financial costs of integration.
• In addition to OECD destinations, migratory flows are mostly intraregional, and this trend is likely to persist given emigration’s high financial and social costs. In 2019, 68 percent of all African migrants resided in other African countries, and only about 16 percent lived in Europe—close to the same distribution observed in 2000, according to UN data.
• One of the largest new flows of economic migrants in recent years illustrates the probable future migration pattern. During the past 20 years, wealthy Gulf countries had net immigration of 20 million people, more than 90 percent of whom were guest workers from South and Southeast Asian countries who had just reached middle-income status.

Socioeconomic Incentives

During the next two decades, better economic opportunities and living standards in destination countries are likely to attract migrants from their country of origin. Socioeconomic differences between countries have historically drawn migrants across international borders, and this trend is likely to intensify in the coming years, as expanding Internet access allows more people to identify better living situations abroad. Between 2013 and 2017, average per-capita income was 54 times higher in high-income countries than in low-income countries, and the World Bank estimates that closing this income gap will take 135 years at current growth rates.

• Migrants from the developing world—particularly those with limited financial means to relocate—will increasingly pursue available jobs in nearby developing countries, judging from the UN and academic research. For example, during the last decade, the growing service and technology sectors in Kenya and Rwanda have attracted new foreign workers from other East African countries, such as Tanzania and Uganda.
• Quality of life considerations also play a major role in migration choices, and countries that provide reliable healthcare, social security benefits, and civil liberties protections are likely to remain attractive migrant destinations, according to the OECD and academic research. The OECD currently hosts a majority of the world’s international migrants, in part because these countries offer strong social safety nets and high living standards.

Aging Populations and Shrinking Workforces in the Developed World

During the next two decades, the combination of aging populations and shrinking workforces in developed countries is likely to spur demand for more foreign workers. Increasing life expectancies will cause the number of people worldwide who are age 65 and older to nearly double from about 728 million in 2020 to 1.3 billion in 2040, according to UN projections. This older cohort will account for about a quarter of the developed world’s population by 2040.

• Aging will have the most bearing on East Asia and Europe, where low birth rates will cause working-age populations to shrink by an average of 11 percent during the next 20 years, according to UN data. Automation can help fill some labor gaps—particularly in manufacturing and other blue collar jobs—but will be less effective at reducing shortfalls in service professionals and high-skill workers.
• Many developed countries will need more migrant workers to care for their growing elderly populations. During the next decade, OECD countries are expected to have a shortfall of 2.5 million nurses and 400,000 doctors; however, these gaps could be partially alleviated by Sub-Saharan Africa’s projected surplus of 800,000 health care workers.
• In 2019, Japan—the world’s oldest country with a median age of 48.4—relaxed some visa restrictions for the first time to attract more foreign workers and relieve employee shortages. South Korea has also announced plans to offer longer stays and better incentives to high-skilled migrants, in part to help address the country’s rapidly aging population.

Some governments are likely to be motivated to raise immigration limits because population aging could contribute to slower economic growth and strained national budgets, and alternative options, such as delaying retirements, are politically contentious. Japan’s GDP growth declined from a 4-percent average in the 1980s to less than 1 percent in 2019, in part because of its shrinking labor force. In 2018, all NATO members spent at least a third of their national budgets on elder care, and rising pension costs are likely to constrain the Alliance’s future defense spending. In 2018, Russia’s decision to raise retirement ages gradually prompted widespread protests and caused President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating to fall by 12 percentage points, according to a Russian NGO. Similar reforms have led to disruptive demonstrations in France and Greece during the past decade.

(Graphic 1: Many high-income countries will have large elderly populations in 2040 - Click image to enlarge)

Population Growth Outpacing Opportunities

During the next 20 years, rapid population growth in many developing countries is likely to outpace job creation and strain basic services, encouraging working-age adults to look elsewhere for opportunities. The world’s population will increase by 1.4 billion between 2020 and 2040, according to UN projections, and almost all of this growth will occur in developing countries that are the least capable of providing large-scale gains in employment, housing, education, and health care. These limitations, coupled with a finite amount of land and other resources, will encourage more migration.

• Sub-Saharan Africans will account for one out of every five people in the world by 2040, and high fertility in some of the region’s poorest countries, such as Niger and Somalia, will cause populations to almost double during this period.
• Fast-growing populations that face limited job prospects have historically contributed to increases in emigration, according to a range of academic research. Many of the countries that will experience rapid population growth in the next decades—including Angola, Mali, and Somalia—also have chronically high youth unemployment.
• Populous countries, such as India and Pakistan, are also on trajectories to experience large increases in absolute terms—even as population growth rates slow—that probably will challenge government capacity. By 2040, India is projected to add about 213 million people—more than any other country during the next 20 years—despite growing at a rate of less than 1 percent annually. Pakistan’s population is projected to increase by almost 40 percent or 81 million people during this period, even as fertility rates continue to decline.

(Graphic 2: The world's population will increase by more than a billion by 2040 - Click image to enlarge)

Economic Conditions

In combination with population growth, broader economic conditions, such as limited job prospects and modest increases in available income, probably will fuel more emigration from developing countries in the coming decades. As of 2018, nearly half of all working-age adults in the developing world had unreliable informal-sector jobs, and during the next 10 years, persistently high rates of informal employment—particularly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa—probably will continue encouraging people to seek improved working conditions abroad.

• US-bound migration from the Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—increased during the last decade, in part because these countries have struggled to provide stable jobs and competitive wages. These countries added enough formal-sector jobs for only 10 percent of new workforce entrants in 2017, and the region’s informal job opportunities have paid wages on average of about $300 a month, or a fraction of US monthly wages.
  
  
• Alternatively, between 2020 and 2030, some origin countries probably will experience higher emigration rates because rising incomes will provide more people with the means to relocate. During the next decade, GDP per capita in at least 34 developing countries—including Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, and the Philippines—is likely to range between $4,000 and $10,000, and this window of development has historically enabled more emigration, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit and academic research. However, most of these countries probably will see emigration rates decline after GDP per capita surpasses $10,000 and local economic conditions improve.
  
  

Security Conditions

During the next two decades, poor security conditions and intrastate conflict in the developing world probably will continue to displace people within countries and may cause smaller, short-term spikes in international migration. Of the 36 million people who have been displaced by conflict since 2010, almost two-thirds have remained in their country of birth.

• Cross-border refugee flows surge and decline along with the underlying conflict and crisis. For instance, the number of registered refugees worldwide was essentially stagnant from 1998 to the end of 2012 but shot up by an average of 2 million every year between 2013 and 2017, largely because of conflicts and crises in Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan, and Syria. The total number of refugees worldwide doubled during the last decade with protracted conflicts in the Middle East, East Asia, and Africa and declining rates of refugee return and resettlement. Much of this refugee population is likely to remain displaced indefinitely.
  
  
• Despite continued influxes of asylum seekers to Europe, international refugee populations remain relatively small compared with the overall number of international migrants. In 2019, refugees accounted for less than half a percent of the world’s population, and all other migrants represented 3.5 percent.
  
  
• When forced to cross international boundaries, most refugees flee to nearby countries within their region. For example, as of June 2020, Colombia and Peru hosted more than half of the five million Venezuelan refugees who have left home since 2014 to escape violence, insecurity, and deteriorating essential services.
  
  

Overburdened Cities, Limited Services

During the next two decades, rapid urbanization in the developing world is likely to further strain government capacity and contribute to growing emigration pressures because cities offer increased information about and connection with the outside world. Expanding populations and increasing internal migration will result in 1.6 billion new urban residents worldwide by 2040, and about 80 percent of this urban growth will happen in countries that are least prepared to provide improved living standards, according to UN data. Consequently, many new city residents will face endemic poverty and limited access to food, water, and sanitation, increasing motivations to move elsewhere.

• High urbanization rates have already led to the rapid development of informal settlements around the developing world. As of 2018, almost two-thirds of Sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population lived in slums. The social realities of large slum populations usually include high unemployment, poor living conditions, and chronic—if low—levels of crime and violence, often resulting from the lack of opportunities in the city’s formal environment.
  
  
• Unregulated urban growth, compounded by frequent clustering of cities on coastlines, makes more people vulnerable to natural disasters that could internally displace populations or spur migration. As of 2018, about 1.4 billion people—one-third of the world’s urban residents—lived in cities at high risk of at least one type of natural disaster, including cyclones, droughts, and floods.
  
  
• Urbanization can also facilitate increases in emigration by providing more people with access to the resources and networks needed for international mobility. Between 1982 and 2000, China’s fast-growing urban provinces generated significantly more international migrants than did the country’s rural areas.
  
  

(Graphic 3: Most urban growth will probably occur in less-developed countries - Click image to enlarge)

Climate Change To Add to Migration Pressures

Climate change and environmental degradation in the coming decades are likely to contribute to the economic and social stresses that encourage migration. The populations most vulnerable to adverse climate effects live in developing countries but often have few resources to emigrate far beyond their borders, suggesting climate change will drive migrants primarily to nearby countries.

• Warming temperatures, rising sea levels, and extreme weather will contribute to environmental degradation that undermines livelihoods and potentially spurs migration from the developing world. Climate effects on farming, fishing, and herding already are making these vocations unstainable in some of the world’s most vulnerable areas.
  
  
• Small countries—particularly island nations and those with long coastlines—are susceptible to climate-induced migration because their populations have little room to retreat from rising seas. The Government of Kiribati, for example, has urged residents to consider moving abroad to avoid the projected effects of climate change, partly to draw international attention to the vulnerability of Pacific island countries.
  
  
• More frequent and intense tropical storms are likely to displace populations within countries in the short term because those affected by the resulting damage will have limited means to move abroad. However, the long-term damage of devastating storms, including gradual and persistent declines in GDP growth, could prompt some to eventually emigrate to neighboring countries.
  
  

Although pull and push factors are likely to increase migration globally, several countervailing forces could moderate the flow.

Cultural and Political Opposition in Destination Countries

Strong cultural preferences for maintaining ethnic homogeneity and national identity are likely to continue to foment some public opposition to large influxes of migrants, even in countries in need of an infusion of working-age adults. In turn, some political leaders may draw on these public sentiments to advocate or enact policies to curb migration.

Limited Financial Resources

The effects of push factors such as population growth, urbanization, and climate change are likely to be most pronounced in parts of the developing world where many people lack the financial resources to emigrate far from home. As a result, many migrants will be constrained to move elsewhere within their country or region, and may not be able to reach OECD destinations.

COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is unlikely to significantly alter the world’s demographic trajectory over the long term, but the crisis will disrupt and slow migration flows during at least the next two years. Even if COVID-19 were to lead to 100 million deaths between 2020 and 2021, this death toll would cause the world’s population to decline by only about 0.5 percent, judging from UN data, suggesting that pre-pandemic demographic projections for the next two decades will remain roughly accurate.

• The economic fallout from the pandemic could delay the predicted rise in incomes that would provide more people the means to migrate from the developing world. Almost one-fifth of the countries projected to have income levels associated with higher emigration rates were expected to reach this threshold during the next five years, suggesting that a global recession could stall development and limit some migration in the near term.
  
  
• The pandemic and its resulting travel bans probably will exacerbate many of the traditional economic drivers of migration, particularly in countries that rely on remittances from citizens abroad. As a result, many people in the developing world could turn increasingly to smugglers, traffickers, and other illicit groups to circumvent restrictions in destination countries.
  
  
• However, existing travel restrictions that severely constrain immigration levels in developed countries probably are unfeasible in the long term, given the global economy’s dependence on foreign labor. For example, in early April 2020, Germany partially lifted its ban on seasonal foreign workers after farmers warned that labor shortages would hinder harvesting and threaten food security.
  
  

Better Urban Planning

Better urban planning could mitigate some of the negative effects of rapid urbanization in developing countries and dissuade prospective emigrants from moving abroad. Throughout history and across the globe, urbanization has been linked with important economic and social transformations. No country has ever reached upper-middle-income status—the level at which emigration rates tend to fall—without developing its cities, according to the World Bank and academic research. Urban areas generate more than 80 percent of the world’s GDP and can provide people with expanded access to employment, education, and health care. City life is often associated with higher levels of literacy, longer life expectancy, and enhanced opportunities for political participation.

Implications for Origin Countries

Origin countries are likely to experience a range of implications from more emigration, such as critical gaps in skills, decreases in unemployment, and improving education levels. In 2016, about 30 developing countries, including El Salvador, Haiti, and Liberia, lost more than 20 percent of their college graduates to job opportunities abroad, and these outflows contributed to local shortages of key professionals, such as doctors and engineers.

• Emigration can alleviate unemployment in origin countries by reducing the labor pool and decreasing competition for scarce jobs. Between 2000 and 2007, unemployment rates in Central and Eastern Europe dropped by as much as 50 percent, in part because of increasing migrant outflows from these countries.
  
  
• Successful emigration of skilled workers can sometimes encourage more investment in education, potentially raising a country’s overall skill level. Migration opportunities associated with nursing led to the development of a private education system in the Philippines that provides low-income women with career opportunities. Large numbers of nurses remain in country after completing their education, and as a result, the Philippines has more trained nurses per capita than some wealthier countries, such as Greece and Malaysia.
  
  

Implications for Destination Countries

In destination countries, increasing migrant flows can polarize electorates and energize nationalist and nativist political agendas. In 2015, EU member states received about 1.2 million first-time asylum applications—more than double the previous year’s total—mostly from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. This influx has divided public opinion on the effects of immigration on society and fueled support for nativist political parties across Europe.

• Between 2002 and 2016, publics in Austria, Ireland, Slovenia, and Switzerland became more divided about whether to boost immigration levels, with the number of supporters and opponents both increasing, according to a European Commission Survey. After EU asylum applicants surged in 2015, public support for generous refugee benefits decreased in Germany, Hungary, and Sweden, and large majorities in these countries said in 2018 that their governments should accept fewer immigrants, according to a Pew Research survey.
  
  
• In recent years, populist-nativist parties in Europe have used public anxieties about the potential economic and social costs of immigrants to mobilize voters and gain influence in legislatures and capitals across the EU. For example, the nativist Alternative for Germany party became the largest opposition party in Germany’s federal parliament after making electoral gains in 2017. Similar anti-immigrant parties in Italy, Spain, and Sweden increased their vote share during elections in 2018.
• The growing political influence of anti-immigration factions has prompted some European countries to pursue policies that—if maintained—could undermine efforts to address workforce decline in the next decades. In February 2020, UK business leaders warned that London’s plan for new visa restrictions on low-skilled foreign workers could lead to critical labor shortages in the construction, food, and hospitality industries.
• Lebanese politicians have publicly blamed Syrian refugees for the country’s ongoing economic crisis. In June 2019, nativist rhetoric employed by the Free Patriotic Movement party may have inspired protesters to target a Syrian-run shop after a political rally.
  
  

However, the fiscal costs that new migrants generate for destination countries—such as strained social services, increased job competition, and depressed wages—tend to be small, short-lived, and outweighed by long-term economic benefits. Local governments usually bear the immediate health care, education, and infrastructure burdens of increased immigration, although these impacts are often offset over time. For example, most migrants to New Zealand begin making net contributions to the economy within five years of arriving, according to the UN.

• After an initial period of integration, migrants to most OECD countries pay more in taxes than they consume in social services, according to academic research. Foreign-born populations in Canada, Germany, Greece, Spain, and the United Kingdom have not been more reliant on government assistance programs than have native citizens.
  
  
• Immigration has the potential to reduce employment and wages for native workers who compete directly with new arrivals. However, the scale of this competition is often small because foreign workers in many developed countries specialize in labor-intensive jobs that would not have been filled otherwise.
  
  
• Migrants in developed countries are also frequent providers of low-cost services—such as child or elder care—that allow native-born citizens to enter the workforce. As a result, immigration can boost a country’s economic output by raising labor-force participation rates.
  
  
• Developing countries can also reap economic benefits from more immigration if they leverage the expertise of foreign workers. In 2012, migrants were responsible for almost 13 percent of Rwanda’s GDP—despite representing only 5 percent of the workforce—largely because the country’s growing service and technology sectors have attracted and capitalized on highly skilled immigrants.
  
  

Implications for the World Economy

Over the long term, increases in migration tend to contribute to economic growth. In 2015, for example, international migrants were responsible for 9.4 percent of global GDP, or more than twice what they would have produced in their home countries. Migrants can generate economic gains for destination countries—through increases in labor, human capital, and entrepreneurship—and can provide countries of origin with remittances that improve socioeconomic development.

• In the long term, international migrants can significantly boost GDP growth in destination countries. Between 1990 and 2016, the labor effects from migration resulted in a 16.6 percentage-point increase in the United Kingdom’s aggregate GDP.
  
  
• Countries with aging populations that accept more immigrants could broaden their tax bases and improve the solvency of their social security programs.
  
  
• For origin countries, emigration can reduce poverty and foster development. Remittances—which have totaled more than all international aid since the mid-1990s—provide developing countries with capital flows and stable streams of income that can elevate poor populations and create better living conditions.
  
  

DEEPER LOOKS

The Future of Biotech

Many forecasts during the past 30 years have anticipated amazing advances in biotech—including cures for disease, eradication of hunger, and the means to transition away from petrochemical dependence—but the story of biotech has been one of incremental gains in food and material production, and medical advances. During the next 20 years, however, biotech is likely to transform a broader range of human experiences. A more multidisciplinary, digital, and data-rich approach to life sciences is accelerating the understanding of and ability to predictably manipulate living matter, although market, regulatory, and normative conditions will moderate the pace and focus of progress. Biotechnology probably will improve many aspects of human existence; however, the pursuit and possible application of these technologies may also create social and economic disruptions and raise numerous ethical questions.

Over centuries, our use and manipulation of life processes in agriculture, medicine, and manufacturing have progressed incrementally, punctuated by leaps in understanding brought about by key discoveries, such as Mendelian genetics, Germ Theory, and DNA. These leaps could not have happened without the development and acceptance of novel tools and algorithms for detecting, imaging, and manipulating biological systems.

During the next 20 years, a more multidisciplinary and data-intensive approach to life sciences will shift our understanding of and ability to manipulate living matter. Scientists are increasingly treating genetic instructions as a form of computational code and incorporating insights and new tools from the rapidly advancing realm of computational science. These disciplines, combined with cognitive science, nanotechnology, physics, and others, are propelling new leaps in our understanding. It is anticipated that the collective application of these diverse technologies to the life sciences—known as bioconvergence—will accelerate discovery and predictability in biotech design and production. This multidisciplinary approach has made it possible to:

• Visualize, measure, identify, and manipulate biological systems at molecular scales
  
  
• Treat genetic instructions in DNA, RNA, and amino acids like a language that can be written, edited, and executed with high precision to synthesize useful materials or organisms
  
  
• Collect, digitize, store, and analyze genetic instructions, referred to as genomes, from many thousands of individuals, along with their physical, mental, and health traits to correlate how specific genetic instructions interact with the environment to produce distinct traits
  
  
• Combine complex biological and nonbiological processes, such as bioelectronic interfaces for sensing or stimulating biological systems in support of medicine, agriculture, and manufacturing

Economic, social, and political factors are likely to influence the pace and focus of biotech research and the availability of products.

Increased Investment and Decreasing Cost

These economic factors together will be pivotal to future biotech breakthroughs and applications. In 2019, the global bioeconomy, defined as all activity enabled by research and innovation in the life sciences and biotechnology, accounted for about $5 trillion, or nearly 6 percent of global GDP. Based on 10-15 percent annual revenue growth trends, the world bioeconomy could exceed $20 trillion by 2030. A drop in the cost of key enabling technologies could spur application of biotech to a wider set of challenges and potentially democratize aspects of biotech R&D and production, increasing its global accessibility.

Regulatory Restrictions

Such restrictions could prevent or reduce funding, production, or public acceptance of biotech. Bans, restrictions, or modification of standards could emerge in response to accidents, unintended consequences, or public pressure. Greater restrictions could reduce the number of people choosing to enter the field, leading to heightened competition for personnel and shortages of expertise.

International Acceptance

Conversely, international acceptance could increase funding, production, and public acceptance of biotech. Signed treaties or conventions, shared recognition of the need to prevent future pandemics, or biotech advocacy by influential voices on the world stage could encourage global acceptance—a development that probably would motivate more people to pursue formal study in the biosciences.

Large-Scale Collaboration and Cooperation

Whether endorsed by the international community or arising from commercial or grassroots initiatives, large-scale collaboration could significantly accelerate biotech R&D. Open, normatively, and legally guided collaboration would be likely to increase the diffusion and accessibility of technologies and expertise, accelerating the resolution of health and environmental challenges. Less visible collaboration among researchers, startups, and hobbyists—focused on cosmetic, covert, or norm-challenging advances—could also drive breakthroughs, even if a political or regulatory support regime were absent. In such cases, breakthroughs probably would outpace the bounds of extant policy and law.

Changes in Consumer Demand

In response to a health crisis such as COVID-19 or food shortages, consumer demand could quickly shift in favor of biotechnology alternatives; consumer interest in cheaper, more nutritious, less environmentally damaging, and animal-free foods would spur biotechnology-derived alternatives. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are likely to become more accepted, and therefore, more prevalent, displacing some traditional agricultural sources. It is anticipated that culture grown alternatives to meats and fish will also become common, with similar effects on livestock industries.

Responses to Environmental Change

Biotech is likely to receive increasing attention and support in the coming years as a way to sustain sufficient production in the face of changes in global norms and policies related to land and water usage or carbon emissions. The emergence of policies that give preference to environmentally constrained or carbon-neutral technologies could endow some biotech solutions with global or regional regulatory, normative, or market advantages. Some environmental changes could create situations in which the most effective way to sustain local production of traditional food sources might be through genetically engineered surrogates.

During the next two decades, we anticipate that biotechnology may deliver any or all of the following eleven outcomes. These applications hold promise for improving health and living conditions; however, they are accompanied by potential societal disruptions, ethical concerns, or security challenges. Each application might require a combination of technological advancement and human decisionmaking regarding application or consumption.

Digital Healthcare and Precision Medicine

Medical professionals, medical diagnostics, and personal Internet of Things (IoT) devices are already collecting an increasing volume of health data. This information is being fused with other personal information, digitally recorded behaviors, and cyber indicators to radically improve prediction of new diseases, as well as treatment outcomes. Even so, this data merging could erode physical and digital anonymity, allowing governments, corporations, or individuals to target or discriminate against persons based their biosignatures, assessed or forecasted health status, or inferred genetic traits. Regulations in some countries limit the potential for this capability to create or amplify social inequality, whereas in other countries, practices such as the creation of “social credit” scores could easily incorporate genetic criteria.

(Graphic 1: Bioconvergence 2040 - Click image to enlarge)

Bioprinting of Organs and Other Individualized Therapies

Therapies that use genetic-based medicine and cellular engineering specific to an individual person, otherwise known as bespoke medical therapies, are already available to treat some conditions—albeit at a high cost. During the next 20 years, the range of conditions and treatments these techniques will be able to address is likely to grow, including printing of tissues and the creation of genetically tailored animals to produce human organs compatible for transplantation. Although these treatments are expensive, they may be less costly than decades of treatment for chronic diseases, such as diabetes. However, this more tailored approach to medicine may not be within reach of most people during the next 20 years, and disparity of access to the most advanced techniques could make equal access to health care an even more fraught topic of public debate.

Reproductive Engineering to Enhance Human Traits and Performance

Technology now exists to enable screening and selection or rejection of fertilized human embryos based on desired genetic traits, and genetic modification of human life in these embryonic stages is increasingly possible. Near-term practices in this field are likely to focus on avoidance of adverse health outcomes and the selection of desirable physical traits. As costs for these procedures fall and reliability increases, a growing number of people and societies may be tempted to pursue trait selection as a means to protect or advantage their children, or to alter the health and productivity dynamics of entire populations. Before 2030, practices may include selection or modification for more well understood cosmetic features, such as height and eye or hair color, and may even progress to include traits such as intelligence or personality as confidence in the safety of the techniques grow. These practices may intersect with significant cultural and moral fault lines and probably will not be available to large segments of the global population, or possibly be mandated in others, raising the potential for inequality within and between states.

Ecological Engineering

Plants, animals, and microorganisms could be selected and modified to stabilize an environment, reduce human impact, or improve productivity. Ecosystems could be engineered to enable production of food, materials, and even energy in ways that consume less fresh water, require less arable land, and enable productivity in formerly unproductive or inefficient settings—potentially ranging from depleted farm fields to the surface of Mars. Genetic modifications are already enabling crop productivity in areas where saltwater incursion is occurring or farming has never been possible.

Harmful applications of genetic modification are certainly possible; however, this application of biotech has already exhibited great potential to address needs and reduce conflict. Future risks include greater pressure on fragile ecosystems as they become more readily exploitable by humans, the displacement of native plant and animal species, and unintended second-order consequences on consumers’ health. Industrial-scale actors able to overcome regulatory, technical, and market challenges are more likely to advance this outcome, raising the possibility that costs and benefits will accrue unevenly, advantaging specific countries, communities, or firms.

Computer-Human Interfaces

The fusion of machine and human capability occurs in various forms and at different levels of integration. Noninvasive or virtual augmentation of physical, visual, tactile, and auditory senses through gloves, glasses, and headsets is common in gaming, learning, and telework. Electroencephalographs and electrical or magnetic transmitters worn on the head enable similar uses through stimulation and detection of brain activities. This form of manipulation has been shown to marginally enhance perception, memory, and attention. Invasive neural interfaces that directly connect brain or nervous tissue to computers are commonly used to correct neurological conditions, but all the current forms of brain-computer interaction occur at very low data-transfer rates.

Human-machine networks currently in development may be able to overcome these limitations, radically increasing the rate of data transfer, expanding the range and depth of human perception and cognitive capabilities. Although initial uses of these hybrid systems may be for medical treatments to overcome neurological conditions, nonmedical uses are already being explored. These uses are likely to include new forms of social interaction, entertainment, and tools giving competitive advantage to “power users,” who are able to use the systems to solve hard problems or gain market advantage. Unintended consequences may include leaps in the adverse consequences of cyber attacks and technically enabled influence operations. As the divide between enhanced interface “haves” and “have-nots” grows, it may fuel new cultural, social, and workforce tensions.

Biomanufacturing of Materials and Devices

Automation and data-driven processes are increasingly being incorporated into biotechnology, and anticipated to radically improve the predictability and reproducibility of research and manufacturing outcomes by 2040. Automated molecular assembly techniques with DNA and other biomolecules probably will push engineering and design capabilities further into the nanoscale application space, hastening the convergence of biological and digital technologies. In some current industrial processes, such as the creation of chemical feedstock, fermentation, enzymatic processing, and medicine production, automation has already become routine. Also routine are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) used in industry and agriculture that are consumed as foods, albeit often with labeling or regulatory restrictions. Most developed nations have instituted policies that mandate identification of GMO products, but not all, suggesting that global polices regulating GMO’s are still evolving.

Just as genetic modification may enable production with less fresh water or land, it may also enhance or tailor output in fertile environments, bypass traditional hydrocarbon input sources, reduce reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, or enable new production paths that create less atmospheric greenhouse gases. For example, biologically altered plants or fungi may be used as sources of nonanimal protein for human consumption or to grow carbon-negative structural materials. Such applications are likely to emerge gradually, possibly in response to new policies that penalize water, pesticide, or carbon-intensive legacy processes, or because economies of scale develop around biotech alternatives, making them more economically attractive.

DNA-Based Data Storage

Use of DNA to encode and store data is already technically feasible and being demonstrated in laboratories, and DNA or similar chemical polymers probably will be used to store data for archival purposes within the next 20 years. With an orders-of-magnitude greater storage capacity than most current technologies, synthetic DNA might become a preferred medium for applications that place a premium on data volume and longevity, and, low power. In an increasingly instrumented and hyperconnected world, the ability to store vast quantities of data for long, perhaps indefinite periods could enable new forms of long-term social monitoring, engendering capabilities that could be used to control as well as protect.

Cures or Eradication of Many Diseases

Eradication of most common diseases may be possible within the next 20 years, spurred on by a range of biotech advances, including disease vector control and the development of new medical treatments and preventive medicines. However, real-world execution is unlikely to match the theoretical health potential because of uneven global access to these technologies within this period. Instead, there probably will be debate over which diseases to prioritize for elimination and significant variability in access to treatment, driven primarily by market forces.

Global efforts to address contagious and deadly maladies, such as malaria or tuberculosis, could offer significant improvements in productivity, quality of human life, and longevity. In such cases, inequality and conflict would be less likely as first-order consequences but could still arise in response to rapid shifts in labor forces or more gradual demographic changes. For example, eliminating malaria would relieve vast suffering but, over time, could also result in population growth that exceeds local environmental carrying capacity and labor force demands.

On-Demand Medicine Production

The ability to rapidly produce new treatments and vaccines at scale could prove to be a critical factor in a country or region’s ability to respond successfully to natural or artificial pandemics. The COVID-19 pandemic created a global shock that increased investment in medical technology. Such capabilities could contribute to inequality or drive conflict if a large-scale public health crisis produced different outcomes between groups with and without access to the technology.

Synthetic Organisms

The creation of living reproducing organisms based on an expanded genetic code and amino acid repertoire could be common in research settings and some parts of industry within the next 20 years. The ability to do this routinely would mark a milestone in the human understanding of living processes and represent an inflection point in the pace of biotech discovery and application. Creation of synthetic organisms is likely to catalyze greater investment in biotech and amplify debates about the direction and goals of bioscience. The creation of never-before-seen organisms, materials or therapeutics, even if designed solely for beneficial purposes, is likely to spark concerns about broad availability to the global population and debates about benefits and potentially dangerous uses.

Transformed Agriculture and Food Production

Within the next 20 years, new food production and preparation processes may be increasingly conducted in highly automated, environmentally controlled conditions that use genetically altered organisms, potentially displacing conventional agricultural practices as the major form of food output. Present day forerunners of these technologies are used in large-scale controlled environment farms, and in the factory cultivation of gene-altered fish, staple crops, and meat substitutes.

Impacts on communities and the environment will vary depending on the species, process, and location. These future farming techniques–while unlikely to create conflict between nations–have the potential to create both healthy and harmful effects on communities and ecosystems. For example, some experts assess that integration of modern technologies into rural farming in Africa has both raised output and created incentives for aspiring “high-tech” youth to remain engaged in local communities. In contrast, sporadic illness in US factory-farmed fish and the supposed damaging health effects of herbicide tolerant GMOs have led to public opposition; Automation of labor-intensive harvesting practices is displacing labor, and further tilting agricultural production in favor of corporate-scale actors.

Biotech offers the possibility of improving human health, the environment and agriculture while creating more sustainable modes of production. Conversely, biotech and the growth of the bioeconomy may also create disruptions and compound existing challenges, including expanding inequality, aggravating international competition, and intensifying ethical debates about what it means to be human.

Unequal Access and Benefit

During the next 20 years, biotech advancements, particularly expensive, tailored technologies, are likely to be unevenly distributed within and between countries. Although some of the emerging biodevelopment models prioritize widespread collective benefit, biotech will remain an R&D-intensive, profit-driven, and largely commercial undertaking. Consequently, the leading edge of what it can offer probably will remain out of reach, at least initially, for many people, even as many biotech products become commoditized and commonplace.

Geopolitical Competition

Biotech has historically been concentrated in a limited set of countries because it depends on clusters of innovation that harness extant academic and technological communities, but countries are looking to lure both firms and talent to catapult their domestic industry.

• Biotech expertise is global and similar to artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies; firms in the United States, China, and other countries are increasingly competing for the best biotech talent.
  
  
• Although access to visionary human talent is critical to biotech research, the coming era of automation may see biotech manufacturing shift to places with access to key production resources and inexpensive labor, or regulatory permissiveness.
  
  
• Biotech can be a driver of local innovation as industries with convergent capabilities collocate in response to favorable government policies that encourage biotech development. Countries with focused policy support and an agile regulatory regime may be better able to harness biotech to advance national economic, health, or security objectives.

Evolution or Devolution?

As the ability to alter human traits and capabilities both before and after birth increases, we probably will see debate, or even conflict, about the limits and implications of manipulating human biology. Biotech may offer greater control and predictability of human form and behavior, allowing for specialization to impart compatibility with machine interfaces, for personal reproductive or performance advantage, or to effect scaled social change. The promise of improved health and longevity is likely to increase support for its implementation, while at the same time raise concerns about how societies should prepare to manage a much healthier, longer-living population. Biotech alteration of humans also holds the potential to create medical dependence, nonmedical advantage, or inequality between those who are, and are not, altered.

We anticipate that some people and societies will embrace these challenges, and some will seek to control the availability of these options to advantage or protect themselves and their allies. Some individuals will reject the new orthodoxies by abstaining from human engineering—becoming rebels or even refugees from the prevailing bionormative regimes. The differences that arise from the application of these technologies are likely to pose social, legal, and cultural challenges. Even if human engineering is not widely permitted or practiced, it could join other risky medical tourism practices, such as stem cell treatments offered in countries without clinical protections or enforced regulations. During the next 20 years, biotech could become a factor in divisive identity politics as different communities or countries grapple with foundational questions about human evolution and the environment.